


What Happened in New Orleans

by wheatear



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Character Death, Dark, F/M, New Orleans, Original Family, Season/Series 04, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheatear/pseuds/wheatear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The secret is out. Thanks to Katherine, all but one of the Originals are dead, and the hunters are closing in. Nothing seems to rouse Elijah from his grief-stricken stupor. Until another doppelgänger appears. Elijah/Elena. Season 4 AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Last Original

**Author's Note:**

> Part one of eight. For almost any given character you can think of, chances are that they're dead. It's that kind of story. Many of the chapters contain subject matter that deals heavily with death, grief, violence, and awful, awful behaviour. There are no morally upstanding characters in this bar.

_Dear Diary,_

_Well, hello new diary. My name is Megan Fox. This is probably the first time I’ve decided to keep a diary since I was a kid. Well, I’m forgetful. Neglectful and forgetful, that’s me. So I’m hoping that by recording stuff in here, I can preserve a few memories._

_Why now? Mostly because of my son. He’s a year old now. That’s a big milestone. He said his first word (“no” – doesn’t that just tell you everything about him) and he’s already started to walk. I kind of missed recording all that as it happened. Dan took a picture but that only tells part of the story._

_I’m not sure what the next milestone is. Going to school? Riding a bicycle? Stringing together a complete sentence? I haven’t done this before. I still feel anxious every time I look at him. I mean, I’ve read the parenting books and Dan is great, really supportive, but he’s new to this whole thing too. I don’t have anyone else to ask. Joyce is a bitch and it would be weird to ask John._

_I could go online. Join a moms’ forum. No, I can’t._

_Speaking of Joyce… She called again today. She wanted to check what time we were coming over. It’s like she doesn’t trust us. Me. She insists we come over with Louis every week, I guess to check that he’s still alive or something. I didn’t accidentally drop him on his head or feed him something that made him choke or some other newbie mom mistake. She gives me really judgemental looks, by the way. I can hear it in her voice too. If she weren’t so condescending, maybe I could actually learn something from her._

_But screw that. I’m doing fine, I’ve proven that so far. She can keep on shoving that stick up her ass._

 

**1\. The Last Original**

“My name is Katherine Pierce, and I’m here to tell you that vampires exist.”

The girl’s voice rang low and clear. She was beautiful and young – no older than eighteen or nineteen – and she spoke with passionate intensity.

“Good evening, Miss Pierce,” said the interviewer, shuffling his papers in anticipation. “Welcome to the show.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, you say you’ve had direct contact with vampires, is that right?”

Her expression didn’t change. “Yes. They killed my parents and they killed my sister. They left their bodies in our house for me to find.”

Gasps from the studio audience. Whispers rippled around the crowd. A few of them had tittered at first, expecting yet another loony raving on about vampires, but the girl had flummoxed them. Katherine glanced at the audience. She seemed composed, hands clasped in her lap, a petite but upright figure on the red couch.

The interviewer stumbled over his words. “Oh, whoa. My God. I’m so sorry to hear that.”

She nodded stiffly in acknowledgement. It was clear from the outset that the segment was not going in the way the show producers had expected. But they were live, and they continued broadcasting. The interviewer took a moment to formulate another response.

“Um, we’re really very sorry for your loss, Miss Pierce. Was it a recent bereavement?”

“It happened two years ago.”

More murmurs from the audience. The studio gradually quietened down. They were beginning to sense that something was happening, something that had never happened before.

“Can you tell us what happened?”

“Yes,” said Katherine. “I’ll tell you everything.”

*

It was a big old house and the basement took up the entire length of the floor. Part of it had once been a wine cellar, and the scent still lingered in the wooden floorboards, the beams and even the cement and stone in the walls: a rich, dusky, old sort of scent. Another part had been converted into a room, perhaps for gambling or playing billiards. Chalk marks dusted the floor. They’d swept the place clean, but history could never be entirely erased.

At any rate, he had resided there for three weeks now without seeing an inch of sunlight.

He was wearing a vest, grey slacks, and his feet were bare. Stubble darkened his jaw. Someone had left a glass of blood on the table by his seat. He left it untouched. A candlestick burned slowly but steadily down.

Elijah picked the candle up out of its holder. The hot wax melted against his hand, sticking to the flesh. He moved his other hand in front of the candle, flexed the fingers and watched how they moved. Silhouetted, they looked like bones. He held the candle flame to his thumb. It wasn’t hot enough really, couldn’t do much damage. Five seconds. Ten seconds. The flesh started to burn. The flame licked up his palm.

It itched, nothing more. He grimaced, then tossed the candle into the fireplace a few feet away – the only other light source. He flexed his fingers again, the thumb that he had burned, made a shape in front of the fire. It was unblemished. Whole.

A shadow was thrown up by the flames above the hearth. As often happened, he was drawn to look at it. The shadow’s maker was a coffin that rested along the left hand wall. His coffin, the one he had lain in with a dagger in his heart. The top was open, but he had not gone near it. The dead rested. Elijah did not.

He couldn’t die even if he wanted to. Certainly no one else in the house wanted him to. For a time he had lacked the will to feed, supposing that he would wither away and go into an unconscious slumber. It would take him longer than other vampires, but he could wait.

They had solved that problem by bringing him a weak and injured girl nearly three weeks into his self-imposed fast. By that time he was ravenously hungry, and Elijah was not used to starving. They all but threw the girl at him, he bled her out until she was dead, and in his anger he killed both the vampires who had brought him his victim.

After that, they were more careful. He was told that they had to move on. He didn’t ask why.

Three weeks at this new location, three more weeks without blood, and they had done nothing more than check up on him every couple of days.

Perhaps this time they would let him starve. Elijah closed his eyes and licked dry lips. He could feel the heat of the fire rippling over his skin. The only thing that ebbed and flowed in this drab, dark place.

_We stick together as one. Always–_

*

“Why do we always have to run, Elijah?” Rebekah asked. “I’m tired of running.”

A thousand years of weariness lay behind her tone, and a thousand years of the same behind his reply.

“We have no choice. We run or we die.”

A mantra they had lived by, perhaps more truly than any other. Their surroundings told the full story: a motel room on the outskirts of a nondescript town. Twin beds, clean enough at least. The grime on the radiator was something else. A single naked light bulb hung from the ceiling.

Rebekah had been looking out on to the balcony, but she turned away from it and yanked the flimsy curtain shut. There was nothing to see, outside or inside. Her suitcase lay unopened at the foot of her bed. Elijah hadn’t bothered unpacking either.

“This isn’t living! This isn’t what you promised me.”

He picked at the threadbare blanket on his bed. He could find them a better place to stay. That wasn’t hard. They were used to living in luxury, even in these times. But the location wasn’t the issue, it wasn’t why Rebekah’s temper had flared up, why she was pacing around.

“You promised me a family. We were supposed to have a family.”

She came over to him, sitting down at last, and leaned her head on his shoulder. Elijah held her close. His baby sister, all that he had left in the world.

She sobbed. “I miss Nik.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

“I miss him, I miss his stupid face.”

*

_–and forever._

*

“Listen, Elijah. Shit has gone so far beyond the fan now. It hit the ceiling, it hit the floor, the entire building is one big pile of shit. There’s no cleaning this up.”

Elijah wrinkled his nose in mild distaste. “I was under the impression that you were handling it.”

He had given Julian orders. Not that the other vampire needed them: Julian was over five hundred years old and extremely well-connected. He ruled over clans of vampires in France, Italy and Spain, and had done well out of the power vacuum that had appeared in recent months, to the point that Elijah had considered putting a permanent stop to his ambition. But Julian was too valuable to remove.

“I can’t. There aren’t enough of us.” Julian spoke with even more vehemence than usual. “You can take down one video, but then someone else copies it and passes it on, and a hundred other people upload videos of their own. The news channels keep finding them. I’d say we’ve reached the point of no return. We are officially in a shitstorm.”

Elijah suppressed a sigh. Julian’s wide-eyed stare was beginning to give him a headache.

“What are you doing about it?”

“We’re doing everything we can,” said Julian, and Elijah’s eyes narrowed, “but – my lord – the reason I want to make clear the full extent of this crisis is because our first priority has to be you. You and Rebekah. They know your names. The entire world knows who you are and what that means. You have to go into hiding, now. Disappear. Please.”

Disappear. Go into hiding. That meant more than simply running. It meant vanishing off the radar entirely.

He would have to break the news to Rebekah. She was in the hotel bar, scoping out the denizens for someone to eat. He and Julian were on the roof, far away from prying eyes and ears, only the moon watching them overhead.

“We’ll help you,” said Julian. “I’ll have Lucia find a place for you. I’ll handpick our best vampires to stand guard. No one else will know where you are.”

Elijah nodded slowly. “I want to be kept in the loop. I want full visibility of everything you do.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“And full control. Remember your vows to me.”

For a second Julian blinked. Then he dropped into a crouched bow, lowering his head. “My undying loyalty, for ever.”

Elijah gestured for him to get up. “Fetch Rebekah. We leave the country tonight.”

*

He measured time’s passing as the fire died down, slowly, into a stupor. The flames flickered behind his eyelids.

“Elijah?” A soft knock at the door to the basement.

He opened his eyes. Light spilled in behind him. He didn’t look, but at the top of the staircase would be a woman in her late twenties, a woman with golden tresses and soft cheeks. He had seen her with a curl in her lip and a wicked gleam in her eyes, for Lucia was a vampire, and both her teeth and tongue were sharp.

She hadn’t visited him in weeks.

“I have news,” she said. “Good news.”

He didn’t reply. There was a pause.

“I’ve brought you a visitor,” she went on. “Say hello.”

The top step creaked. Someone else had entered the basement.

“Hello, deadbeat dad.”

Elijah started. That voice. Surely he must have…

He turned around, leaning over the side of his chair to get a look at the newcomer descending the staircase. Her steps were quick and delicate, her long hair flowing over her shoulders, and she wore a slightly mischievous smile.

“Katerina.”

The name choked out of his mouth, half-whisper, half-gasp.

She paused to regard him, flicking her bangs out of her eyes. “Nope. Try again.”

No. It couldn’t be. He stared, disbelieving, slow to react. What was Lucia thinking? Surely a human could not have tricked her, and yet…

“This is Elena Gilbert,” Lucia confirmed. “The other doppelgänger.”

Said doppelgänger smiled. “Long time no see, Elijah. I like what you’ve done with the place.”

Two nimble steps and she had flicked a lamp switch on, throwing a depressing light on the place. The wooden floorboards were bare except in the middle of the room where a large dark green rug lay limp in front of the fireplace. Plaster was peeling off the walls. As for the furniture, it was makeshift at best: a bed, a wardrobe, a side table, a couple of chairs and lamps all jostling for space. Lucia watched from the doorway above.

But Elijah only had eyes for her, the girl who could not be Elena.

“Impossible,” he whispered. He stood up, dust billowing out of the armchair behind him.

Katherine-or-Elena walked around the room, looking around. He catalogued the differences. She didn’t walk like Katherine. Her hair was wavy, not curly, and too short to be Katherine’s. Katherine did not wear bangs. But it had been months, years since he had seen either of them in the flesh, and Katherine could easily have changed her look to match his memory of Elena. She had been known to impersonate the girl before.

That she would do so here, now, as a human in a place where every vampire wanted her dead, seemed just as impossible as Elena Gilbert being alive. So what phantom was he witnessing?

“Well, I’ll let you two catch up,” said Lucia. “Elena, come talk to me when you’re done.”

The girl nodded. “Okay.”

Lucia departed, closing the door behind her. Meanwhile, his visitor was still scoping out the new place. He watched silently as she made her rounds, pausing to frown at him when she saw the coffin. Finally she came to a stop in front of him and placed her hand on his chest. Elijah looked down and saw the ring.

“See,” she said. “It’s me.”

He moved to take hold of her hand, but before he could she blurred away from him, disappearing out of his line of sight. Elijah whirled around. There she was, sitting in his armchair, hands curling over each of the arms.

“Vampire,” she said. “Katherine is still human.” She picked up the glass of blood, sipped it, and made a face. “Stale. No wonder you’re not eating. You look awful by the way.”

“You’re not Katherine,” said Elijah. “This isn’t another one of your games.”

He couldn’t quite get his head around it. His mind was sluggish after three weeks without blood. It couldn’t be Elena. It couldn’t be.

She gave him a somewhat sympathetic look and rose out of her seat. Again, he noted the difference in movement. Katherine would have been lithe and sinuous; this was more natural, spontaneous. Less like a coiled snake always ready to strike, although perhaps all the more dangerous since he couldn’t anticipate her.

“Okay, I’ll prove it to you.” She approached him again, her voice soft. “The first time I met you, I had been kidnapped by Rose and Trevor. They took me to an abandoned house, kind of like this one. They were scared. Then you came in. I saw you at the top of the stairs and then suddenly you were right in front of me. You leaned in and you sniffed my neck. You thought I was impossible then too. What did you say to me?” She put on a quizzical look, scrunching up her nose. “Oh, yeah. _Hello there_.”

It was her. It was really her. The impossible had come true.

He let out a long sigh. “Elena.”

She smiled – and he recognized that smile, it was pure Elena Gilbert, simple and warm. “Hi.” She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, also? You smell like a corpse.”

*

Katherine dabbed her eyes. Her tale had been a tragic one, and no one could doubt the depth of emotion in those expressive dark eyes. The audience loved her already. They whooped and cheered when she described her escape from the vampires who hunted her. They gasped when she presented photographic evidence of several recently deceased vampires – from faded sepia-toned pictures to modern-day photographs, to the grey-faced corpses laid out in a line, deaths that had mystified humanity for over a year. It was a compelling story, and Katherine told it well. They loved her frankness, her vulnerability, and most of all her courage. She would be praised for all these things and more, called a champion, an icon, a hero, a defender of humanity.

All of that to come.

The interviewer leaned forward.

She straightened her shoulders. There was more. “Klaus may be gone, but two of his family are still alive. Elijah and Rebekah. This is important. Can you turn the camera directly on me, please? I have something to say.”

The interviewer, confused but intrigued, nodded. “Go ahead.”

The camera switched to a full-screen shot of Katherine, zooming in on her face. Beautiful, determined, ardent. A face to inspire. A poster-worthy face.

There was the minutest of pauses.

“I have a message for all vampire hunters out there. The vampires I knew were the Originals. The first of their kind. If you kill an Original vampire, every vampire that can trace their origin back to that Original, the entire bloodline, dies. We all saw what happened in New Orleans. No one wants a repeat of that. If you want to rid the world of vampires, here’s how you do it. Kill the Originals. Kill Elijah. Kill Rebekah. Cut off the head of the snake. Do that, and vampires will finally be gone for good.”

*

Elijah shook his head. “You should be dead.”

“Last I checked, I was.”

“No,” he said, “you should be _dead_ , you should have died over a year ago when Klaus…”

“Died?” Elena supplied.

“Yes.”

“Well, I didn’t. Turns out I’m from your bloodline. Lucky me.”

She turned away from him, lifting one shoulder in a sort of half-shrug. Elijah frowned at her. It wasn’t that he kept precise track of every vampire in his bloodline – hardly necessary now anyway – but Elena had researched her lineage and she had traced it back to Klaus.

“Klaus lied,” said Elena, looking at him again. She seemed to have read his mind. “Big surprise.”

He shook his head, gathering himself. “You disappeared. Why?”

Elena laughed. “Why? You remember the Katherine interview, don’t you? The one that made her instantly famous and forced me into hiding.”

The interview that had blown their cover right open. Impossible to forget. He made a face, sinking back down into his armchair again. How many times had he seen that interview replayed, seen her face smiling down at him from television screens, advertising panels, banners on the side of buildings… She was everywhere.

So of course Elena had to be nowhere.

“I remember,” he said. “So what brings you here?”

Elena shrugged. “Your good friend Lucia Delaney. I was going to stay off the radar until this whole thing got taken care of, but you guys seem to be having a rough time of it. Lucia found me and asked me to help out, so here I am.”

She waved her hands as though that explained everything, but for Elijah it didn’t. He had no use for a vampire doppelgänger who was supposed to be dead, particularly not one who had switched off her emotions. His usual guards were tedious enough, and Elena could hardly match their age or experience.

He looked away. “I fail to see how you could help.”

She ignored that. He could sense her presence at the edge of his vision. She moved back into his line of sight, deliberately stepping forward so that her shadow fell over him. He gave her a dead-eyed stare. Elena was unimpressed.

“I have to say, Elijah, the scruffy vagrant look? Doesn’t suit you. Are you planning to grow a beard next?”

“I’m not planning to do anything.”

“Right,” she said. “And there we have our problem.”

 _Our_ problem? His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here, Elena?”

“We’ve all heard the news. Vampires dropping dead like flies. The Originals on the run. The world is a mess. Everything’s falling apart, and what are you doing about it? You know, I heard you were far gone, but I didn’t know you were this bad. You can’t even put on a pair of socks.”

Her tone was matter-of-fact, but still managed to be disapproving. The old Elena would have shown him some sympathy. This Elena just looked pissed that she had found him in such a pitiful state.

He grimaced. “So you’re here to tell me to get dressed.”

“And shower, and shave, and then go out there and lead. Fight with us.”

She had passion, even without her humanity. Something he lacked.

“Why do you care?”

“I care because like every other vampire left on the planet, my life depends on you. Out there, right now, they’re hunting us down. If they get to you…”

“I know,” he said. “Spare me the lecture. I’ve heard it before. Do you think I’ve been idle in these last two years? I did everything in my power to stop this. I sent in spies to counter the government and the press, I cut off their sources, spread misinformation, killed or compelled every reporter, informant, and conspiracy theorist that heard even the wildest rumour of vampires, and yet the news continued to spread. I personally have killed more witches in the past year than I have in my entire lifetime, and for what? We have reached open warfare, and the witches have the werewolves and the vampire hunters on their side. I am the last piece on the chessboard. With my death comes yours and the death of every single vampire on this earth. I am fully aware of that and your repeating it will not make the slightest difference.”

His voice cracked as he finished – his mouth was parched. He had not spoken at such length for weeks.

“That’s it?” she said. “We’re all doomed? You can’t just stop fighting.”

“I have nothing left to fight for.”

“It’s been two months since Rebekah died,” said Elena. “You need to–”

“Don’t.”

His voice was low, but carried enough pained venom that it made her pause for a moment.

She took a breath. “You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. That’s why I’m here. I’m going to help you move on.”


	2. Crusade

_Dear Diary,  
  
Louis learned a new word today. He pointed at a picture on the news and said, “Vam.” I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. Yes, I told him. Vampire. Bad vampire. They bite. Mommy used to have a mommy and daddy too, once. Until the vampires got them.   
  
I could maybe have omitted that last part. But he has to learn. I won’t lie to him. I won’t pretend like the world’s an okay place when it’s not. I’m pretty sure we don’t have any vampires here in Hawaii, but you never know. We stay in at night just in case. I don’t let Louis out of my sight until he’s tucked up in bed. Even then, I worry.  
  
Am I always going to be this worried about him? Nothing has happened. But I feel like if I let my guard down for even a second, something might. Don’t take any chances. I’m living constantly on edge. It’s exhausting._  
  
  
 **2\. Crusade**  
  
The irony of it was infuriating enough. Elena Gilbert, the girl who had once represented the pinnacle of humanity, that defiant spirit, had given up the ghost two years ago when she had abandoned her emotions in favour of not giving a shit about anything, to put it bluntly. That Elena Gilbert had come here to stop him giving up.  
  
And Lucia had thought this was a good idea?  
  
It was mad and desperate.  
  
“Well,” he said, settling back into his seat. “I await your tender loving care.”  
  
“Nice try.” She rapped the arm of his chair. “Get up.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Get up,” she repeated. “You did it before, I was there. You’re not glued to your seat.”  
  
Oh, she was hilarious. Perhaps for a fleeting moment he had been glad to see her, after the shock had worn off. Elena Gilbert alive, something he had not dared hope, would not have dared to even contemplate for it was as impossible as the hope that his sister might return, that Klaus might be alive, Kol–  
  
Fuck.  
  
He couldn’t look at her. How was it that she survived while his sister had not? How could there be not one, but two doppelgängers here to torment him in this world, while everything else around him crumbled away?   
  
“Elijah.”  
  
She clicked her fingers an inch from his nose, leaning in even closer. He met her eyes and focused, but even if she wasn’t taking vervain, he was in no state to compel anyone.  
  
They stared at each other for a long moment.  
  
“Look at you,” she said. “You’re weak. Lost. You’ve let your emotions get the best of you.”   
  
“I’m not like you. I can’t turn off my emotions.”  
  
“That’s funny,” said Elena. “You always seemed so good at it.”  
  
Her casual, mocking tone got to him. The muscles in his face tightened, eyes narrowing imperceptibly. In a moment he had slammed her against the wall, hand curled around her throat. A china figurine on the mantelpiece wobbled and fell off.   
  
“There we go,” Elijah hissed. “Fear. You see, emotions are a difficult thing to suppress.”  
  
She was looking at him with wide eyes, and yes, there had been a momentary stab of both fear and shock. He had pinned her easily, despite being starving. The sudden burst of energy had taken more out of him than he liked to admit, but he controlled his breathing, and though Elena’s hands flew up to try and stop him, she couldn’t prise away his grip.  
  
“I have half a dozen vampires guarding me at any one time,” Elijah continued softly. “Fear rules every one of them. I care not one whit about their miserable lives. Why should I save them?”  
  
“You care about me. Don’t you?”  
  
His hand dropped from her throat. Elena didn’t try to get free. Her expression was deceptively mild, those beautiful eyes gazing at him, neither challenging nor fearful. He could hardly deny her statement. It had been an unspoken part of their relationship well before she became a vampire.  
  
He stepped away, over the china figurine, and his voice turned cold.  
  
“You played a part in the death of at least one of my brothers. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”  
  
She laughed. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry that Kol tried to kill my brother. I’m so sorry that I fought to protect him. You’re not the only one who lost their entire family, Elijah. Get over yourself.”  
  
The truth was an unforgiving mistress. Elijah flinched.  
  
“That was unfair. I know our families were at mutual odds…”  
  
“And now they’re all dead and we both get to be eternally alone. Wow. It’s almost like we have a connection.”  
  
Her words were a knife, cutting out the part of his heart he had reserved for Elena Gilbert. It was crushing.  
  
He swallowed. “If this is your attempt at a pep talk, it’s not working.”  
  
Elena shook her head. “You don’t get a pep talk. I’m telling you to man up. So you lost your family, so what? Don’t play the loss card. You know you’ve caused more pain than you’ve suffered. I don’t care about your suffering. All I care about is living to see another day. The same goes for all the vampires. They need you to survive. I need you. So you need to stand up and find something to live for, because none of us are giving up.”  
  
There was a pause.  
  
“Well, I understand why they brought you here,” said Elijah finally. “They think you might do the trick.”  
  
He was exhausted: she had managed to wring more emotions out of him in minutes than he had felt in weeks. Most of the vampires charged with his care were far too scared of him to attempt anything like Elena’s brazen tactics. Not surprising really, since he had killed more than one of them. Elena obviously wasn’t worried about that.  
  
She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, they both heard the quiet knock at the door and then the creak as it opened a fraction.  
  
Dario, one of his guards, looked in on them. “We need to move again, my lord.”  
  
Oh, blessed interruption. He was so relieved he didn’t protest.  
  
“We’ll be with you in a moment.”  
  
The vampire disappeared.  
  
Elena raised an eyebrow. “My lord?”  
  
“He’s three hundred and fifty years old. In those days, vampires knew their place.”  
  
“And you probably sounded just as pompous back then too.” She shook her head, holding out her hand with a smile. She even wriggled her fingers to encourage him. “Come on. You agreed to go. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”   
  
He had. His first mistake.  
  
“Fine,” said Elijah. “But on my terms.”  
  
She said nothing, only smiled. He took that as agreement.

*

Elijah saw it happen.  
  
Klaus, wordless, bloodless, unable even to scream as his dried-out corpse was set alight. He watched his brother’s body turn to ashes.  
  
He might have screamed. He wasn’t sure.  
  
“Hold him.”  
  
A witch’s voice, strong and clear. Sophie Deveraux.   
  
She had lured him here. Made false promises. Plans to overthrow the vampire that ruled New Orleans.   
  
He rushed her. Choked. His throat closed up, his limbs faltered. Every witch in the crypt bent her power against him, and Elijah buckled.  
  
Sophie crouched down by the pile of dust that had once been his brother and picked up a stake. She had driven it into Klaus’s heart only minutes before.   
  
“There’s a full moon tonight, Elijah,” said Sophie, advancing on him. “We’re strong enough to take both of you.”  
  
He was held by invisible strings, the colour slowly draining from his skin. He could not speak.  
  
“And so they drank of the poisonous wine…” She carried the stake in both hands. “And the blood that made them would also undo them. First the hybrid. Now the Original.”  
  
She came to a stop in front of him. Raised the stake. It was not the white oak, but any stake could kill him. The witches would ensure his death was permanent. He would join his brothers on the other side.   
  
“Run!”  
  
A flash of blonde hair, a swift strike–  
  
Sophie collapsed with a cry. And there was Rebekah, his sister, tugging at his hand – he could not move but she  _wrenched_ , and as the witches surged forward to help their fallen ally, Rebekah pulled him away.  
  
He looked back for a second as they made their escape, before they breathed again in the open night air. Sophie stirring, blood on her temple, the other witches stooping down beside her.

She was alive. She was alive and his brother was dead. Elijah would not forget that.

*

Elijah came to, blinking, as someone tipped a plastic cup against his mouth. Blood dribbled on to his lips; he licked it automatically and the cup tipped a little further, pouring more into his mouth.  
  
He turned away. “Wait…”   
  
“Drink up,” Elena breathed.  
  
He tried to protest, but her fingers closed around his jaw, tilting his chin up again so that she could feed him the blood. It was rich and sweet and he gulped it down, his senses sharpening with every drop.  
  
They were moving. He could feel the steady pulse of an engine, the clattering of the train tracks. The seats in the carriage were an unattractive blue. They had a table seat: strewn on the table were various items including an empty bagel wrap, sunglasses, tissues, a cell phone, and a juice bottle.   
  
Elena picked up the juice bottle.  
  
“Want some more?”  
  
He took the plastic cup and crumpled it in his hand, tossing it aside on the table. Elena frowned at this impolite display.  
  
“I know you are one of the walking dead, but you don’t have to look like one,” she informed him.  
  
Elijah glanced out of the window. It was dark, and the light inside the carriage meant it was virtually impossible to see anything outside. Elena had the aisle seat, blocking his way to the rest of the carriage. He could hear a few murmurs down the other end, so the carriage wasn’t empty. But he had no idea what was going on.  
  
“Where are we?”  
  
“On the last leg of our journey,” said Elena. “We’re on the Philadelphia Main Line, two stops away from our destination.”  
  
“So we crossed the border.”  
  
“Two days ago. Don’t worry,” she added. “We bought out the whole carriage. Julian figured that was safer than stealing a car. We don’t want the police on our trail already.”  
  
He frowned. “I asked not to be woken.”  
  
She shrugged. “I got bored.”  
  
His plan had been to sleep the entire way there. Exhausted, starving: it was easy to slip into an unconscious slumber. Not rest. Every time he closed his eyes he was plagued by visions of his siblings’ deaths. But that was no more nightmarish than the waking world. At least the coffin shut that out.  
  
“I still can’t believe you travel in that thing,” Elena said.  
  
“Where is it?”  
  
“I had it sent on ahead. You’re not crawling back in there. Even thinking about it gives me the creeps.”  
  
She took a swig from the bottle that he had refused. Elijah winced.  
  
“So I’m stuck with you.”  
  
“Until you snap out of it, yes.”  
  
“This seems a little one-sided.”  
  
“That’s probably because I’m the only one doing anything. I’m making all the effort here. The least you could do is give me a little something in return.”  
  
He sighed.  
  
“Get dressed,” she said. “It’s not hard. Go wash and change. Put on a suit, you look good in them. There’s only so long I can stand to look at your toes.”  
  
He looked down. His feet were still bare. As far as vampires in coffins went, he must not have presented a tremendous sight. The traditional image of the coiffed and sleeping vampire tended to involve a suit jacket and pants at least, perhaps even a cape, neatly starched and preserved. Hands in prayer position. All very regal. Elijah had curled on his side in his slacks and vest; his hair had grown ragged and his scruff was doing its best to become a beard.  
  
And Elena had dragged him out to face the public like this.  
  
“I don’t have my clothes,” he said.  
  
Elena grinned. “No problem. I brought your suitcase.”

*

The cemeteries of New Orleans had no tombstone for Klaus, no mark of his passing. Nor the hundred other vampires that had died there, the unfortunate spawn of Klaus’s bloodline.  
  
“Burn it,” Elijah said.  
  
With whoops and yells the vampires swarmed into the city, dozens of them, bearing torches, gasoline, explosives – anything that would set the place alight. They tore down every residence, every place where a human might hide safe behind the invitation barrier. They smoked out adults, children, entire families, tore out their throats, feasted, devoured, killed.  
  
Elijah did not stand by and watch. He went first to the bar where Sophie had worked, and when he did not find her there he killed all the patrons and burned it to the ground. He went next to her residence and when he did not find her there either, he burned it too, and drained her flatmate dry.   
  
Rebekah joined him and they scoured the city, looking for witches. He lost count of the number they killed, but Sophie was not among them.   
  
“She’s gone!” an old man told him, when he growled Sophie’s name. “She fled!”  
  
Not one witch would reveal where she had gone, no matter how he threatened them. Elijah’s patience had long since worn out. He snapped the man’s spine and on they moved.   
  
He and Rebekah were both gorged on blood: their eyes were black, their faces smeared with soot, and their fingernails caked with blood. Eventually they stopped feeding and just killed, attacking anything that moved. The city was ransacked, burning; the flames roared higher and higher around them.   
  
By sunrise there were no living people in New Orleans. Only bodies scattered amongst the smoking rubble.  
  
But Sophie was not among them.

*

The new house wasn’t much different than the old except that it had no basement. Elena insisted that he stay on the second floor, in the lightest, sunniest room, a room with a balcony window and a view of the fields stretching out beyond the yard.  
  
Every day she visited. She didn’t stay. He didn’t know where she was staying.   
  
She always brought him a blood bag, and poured it into wine glasses for both of them to share. If he refused to drink, she didn’t budge. She turned on Coldplay instead, forcing him to listen to the dreary tones of  _Fix You_  over and over again. It was torture.   
  
She played the music loud enough for the entire house to hear, twirling around dreamily so that he was simultaneously entranced by the way the sunlight caught her hair and struck by the urge to strangle her with the iPod hanging around her neck.   
  
After that, she insulted him until he got dressed. By the fifth day he was dressed before she arrived, and Elena declared that she didn’t like his tie instead and picked out a different one.  
  
She didn’t press him about his duty to help them or tell him to snap out of it or say any of the things she had said on the first day. Instead she told him about how the people in her life had died. Each day she told him about a different person, and she didn’t tell just the facts, she told it like a story.   
  
“Once upon a time there was a girl called Bonnie Bennett. She was special. She had magic. She died trying to stop a man called Silas from tearing away the veil to the Other Side and unleashing hell on earth…”  
  
“Once upon a time there was a man called Damon Salvatore. He had the misfortune of falling in love with two women who looked exactly alike. One of them rejected him. The other murdered him when she figured out that all he really wanted was a woman who would be what he wanted, and not the person she really was.”  
  
“Once upon a time there was a man called Stefan Salvatore…”  
  
And so on.

*

They reached nine days with no sign of Elena running out of dead people to tell stories about. He listened with a mixture of despair and a growing sense of guilt. He knew what she was doing. She was reminding him that people suffered all the time. His grief was nothing special, for all that it felt so acute.   
  
He drank the blood bags that she gave him. He shaved. He washed and dressed in the morning. He listened patiently when she talked.  
  
But he was going through the motions, doing what was asked and no more. Perhaps Elena sensed that, for on the tenth day she switched things up.  
  
She didn’t tell him a story. Instead she pulled up her chair closer to his and leaned forward.  
  
“So how are you feeling about my visits so far?” she asked. “Like, no like?”  
  
“Honestly, I’d rather have a bereavement counsellor.”  
  
There was a pause. “Wait, seriously? You haven’t had one?”  
  
“That was a joke,” said Elijah, “and no, I haven’t.”  
  
Elena shook her head. “Are these people dumb? I’ll get you one, and then we can eat her. I think that’ll help you loosen up. And you made a joke! It wasn’t funny, but I’m going to take that as an improvement.”

*

  
They ate the bereavement counsellor. It felt good.

*

“I need you to talk to me,” said Elena afterwards. “I’ve talked to you. Now it’s your turn.”  
  
The bereavement counsellor lay dead on the floor of her office. Elena had taken her seat across from him on the couch.   
  
He was an awful person, Elijah reflected. There were really no words strong enough. “Evil”, perhaps.  
  
“I’ve talked enough,” he said instead.  
  
“Not to me.”  
  
He sighed. “I don’t want to talk to you.”  
  
The stain on the office carpet was spreading. Unfortunately the carpet was beige: the cleaners would never get that out. Everything in the office was beige: a soup of coffee and cream designed to soothe distressed clients, combining an air of professionalism with the warmth of a sitting room. Cushions on the sofa, a pot plant, photographs of a tropical beach on the wall. But also a desk and filing cabinet, a group of framed certificates proving just how qualified the dead woman had been.   
  
Elena leaned forward. “Why not?”  
  
“You…” He waved a hand. “You torment me with your face.”  
  
“I can’t help my face.”  
  
“I realize that. But I’m in an emotionally vulnerable position right now as I’m sure you’re well aware, and you not only look like two girls I’ve fallen in love with, you also look like two girls who tried to kill me.”  
  
He had discussed this at great length with the counsellor. Apparently the only thing rivalling his family issues were his doppelgänger issues. He must have been a psychological minefield.  
  
Elena thought for a moment. “I’m in at least one of those camps, aren’t I?”  
  
“There is some overlap.”  
  
“Well, I’m sorry, but I intend to take full advantage of my face.”  
  
“Are you always this difficult?”  
  
She shrugged. “You used to like me being difficult.”  
  
“Not always, I promise.”  
  
“Get used to it. That’s all I can say. No one said this would be easy. What did the counsellor say you should do?”  
  
He grimaced. He had been hoping she wouldn’t ask that. “Mourn,” he said. “Acknowledge my loss and take the time I need to grieve before moving on.”  
  
“Can you do that?”  
  
“I can try.”   
  
Moving on meant taking action against those who wished to wipe the vampires out. Elena and every single vampire around him had made that abundantly clear. And he had unfinished business: with Katherine, with Sophie. They had destroyed the last of his family.   
  
Elena was watching him carefully. She seemed unmoved, expressionless, her only focus working out whether he meant what he had said. No hint of suffering, though she had told him stories so full of grief. If there was sadness behind her eyes, she hid it well.  
  
“Elena,” he said. “What about your loss?”  
  
Her face was the picture of nonchalance. “What about it?”  
  
“You haven’t faced up to it. You’ve ignored it. You’re asking me to do something you refuse to do yourself.”  
  
She twisted her mouth.   
  
“That’s not the point,” she said. “The point is that I’m in a place where I can function, and you’re not. You’re a mess. It doesn’t matter how we get there, what matters is what needs to be done.”  
  
“Turn it on,” he said.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Your emotions. Your humanity. Turn it on.”  
  
“No.” She looked incredulous. “Do you want me to turn into a wreck? The switch stays off.”  
  
“Do you want me to care about the fate of these vampires?”  
  
“Oh, no.” She stood up. “You don’t get to do that. Don’t make your recovery contingent on mine. Go back to the house. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

*

Rebekah did not have a grave either.   
  
When Elena wasn’t there, he stayed in his room. He allowed no other visitors. The vampires in the house stayed away. Sometimes he left the house and walked past the corn fields into the small wood nearby, seeking solitude and silence. He was aware always of the vampire that trailed him, but ignored them.   
  
The dawn chorus greeted him. He walked until the woods swallowed him up.   
  
There he found a solitary pine tree, and crouched down beneath its boughs. The woodland floor was fragrant with pine needles. He pressed his hand softly against the earth, then placed a small urn into the depression he had left.  
  
“Rebekah,” he murmured. “You know, I wanted to apologize. I was too harsh with you, not considerate enough. I think back and I think that my life was one big series of fuck ups. And you paid the price for that. I miss you.”  
  
His voice hitched. He had to pause.  
  
“I wish I could have given you the life that you wanted. I wanted you to be happy.”  
  
He closed his eyes. His hands shook. Sobs racked his body. He poured out his wordless grief, a tidal wave of it, and clutched the urn, seeking something, anything, to hold on to.  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
He looked up. Elena was standing on a mound covered with leaf litter a few feet away, looking down at him curiously.   
  
His skin felt tight. He made an incoherent sound, the muscles in his face straining as he tried to control himself. Elena seemed unfazed; she wasn’t looking at his red-rimmed eyes or tear-stained cheeks; her attention was caught by the urn he was holding.  
  
“Rebekah’s ashes,” she guessed, correctly. “That’s what broke you, isn’t it? Rebekah’s death. More than the rest.”  
  
His jaw unlocked. “Please leave.”  
  
She shoved her hands into her pockets, her breath misting in the early morning air. “I came to tell you something. Are you aware of what’s going on out there?”  
  
“Aware? Yes.”  
  
The hunt had not abated. Rebekah’s death had only rekindled it. He had been shunted around from town to town, country to country, because all the vampires around him were terrified of getting caught. Lucia ensured that he was supervised at all times, while Julian attempted to do the impossible and fight back against an entire world that wanted them dead. They were really just prolonging the inevitable.  
  
“But you don’t know the latest. Katherine’s due to make a statement today.”  
  
He stared. “What?”  
  
“They’re talking about it on the news right now. Come on.”

*

They were in the sitting room. Someone had brought in an old TV, which they had propped on the coffee table. And on the screen… His mouth tightened. Katherine.  
  
“I was compelled,” she explained. “Vampires can control your mind. That’s how they’ve never been discovered up until now. Klaus made me forget that he’d bitten me. I had to act like everything was normal. I thought I had feelings for him, but I don’t even know if that was real.”  
  
Old footage. They were replaying her first interview. He paused in the doorway, Elena beside him. Katherine had not given a live interview in a studio since her first appearance, but she had her own video channel online which she periodically updated. At least, that had been the state of things three months ago. Rebekah used to watch them obsessively, trying to work out from the light and the timing and the objects in the background where Katherine might be.  
  
“Elijah! Here, take a seat.”  
  
Seven vampires were crowded around the television, four of them on the couch and three of them leaning behind it. One of them was Lucia. It was she who had spoken. She leapt up, cuffing the vampire next to her to make him move and leave space for Elijah.  
  
He inclined his head. “Thank you.”  
  
“Move up,” said Elena, squeezing in next to him. There was some jostling and another vampire lost his seat – Lorenzo – but though he rolled his eyes at Elena, he made no complaint.  
  
“They’ve been replaying the same footage for four hours,” Lucia told them. “Katherine likes to keep us on our toes.” She shook her head. “Hard to believe that she sired me.”  
  
Elijah blinked. “Katherine turned you?”  
  
“She turned Julian,” Lucia replied. Julian had turned her. “Of course, we learned early on that Katerina Petrova has no loyalties to anyone but herself. She wants us dead as much as the rest of you.”  
  
Elena caught his eye, but Elijah looked away. The television was now showing a close-up of Katherine’s face. Her dark eyes seemed to pierce right into him. “If you want to rid the world of vampires, here’s how you do it. Kill the Originals. Kill Elijah. Kill Rebekah. Cut off the head of the snake. Do that, and vampires will finally be gone for good.”  
  
“Bitch!” One of the vampires threw an empty water bottle at the TV, almost knocking the aerial over. The picture crackled and snapped.   
  
Several others booed and hissed.  
  
“Quiet!” Lucia ordered.   
  
The footage cut back to the newsreader. “…And that was Katherine Pierce, speaking a year ago in her first full interview that ripped open the secrets of the vampire underworld. Can I just say again, Clare, how incredibly brave it was of this young woman to speak out, at a time when the United States government and the UN was still officially denying the existence of vampires. I think we all forget now how confused and unclear things were at the time.”  
  
His co-presenter nodded. “I couldn’t agree more, Scott. Incredible. Absolutely incredible.”  
  
“And just a reminder, we don’t know exactly when, but we’re expecting a new statement from Ms Pierce at any moment. You know, I think we all expected to hear from Katherine right after the news about Rebekah. So this announcement is well overdue. I’ll admit I was getting worried, Clare, what about you?”  
  
“No doubt. I was really worried. I think we all feel for Katherine because she’s put herself on the line, you know. She really put herself out there.”  
  
“Right, I mean, every vampire out there’s gotta be gunning for her…”  
  
“You bet we are,” Lucia muttered.   
  
“Do you guys have any idea what she’s going to say?” Elena asked, leaning over Elijah to look at Lucia.  
  
“None at all,” Lucia replied. “We haven’t heard a thing for months except for that one leaked report in New Orleans – and I’m sure that was Sophie. She made that personal.”  
  
Elena was blocking his view; all he could see was half a screen and half dark hair. Her hand was also on his knee. “Elena.”  
  
She leaned back, shrugging. “Well, that’s revenge for you.”   
  
Revenge. This was Katherine’s revenge for everything his family had done to her. Sophie’s revenge for every witch that had died by a vampire’s hand. Humanity’s revenge for a thousand years of bloodshed. Katherine was the face of this crusade. She adorned the screen like a hateful banner.  
  
Meanwhile, the presenters were still filling airtime with pointless commentary.   
  
“The good news is that this report of an announcement today proves that Ms Pierce is definitely alive. It’s what we’ve been saying all along, folks. One more to go.”  
  
The co-presenter joined in, giving her partner a high-five. “One more to go.”  
  
“One” being him, of course. The world’s media had painted a target on his back. More hisses from the peanut gallery.   
  
The presenter’s hand flew up to his earpiece; he interrupted himself mid-flow. “Oh – this is it – we’re about to have a live feed of Katherine Pierce, coming through right now…”  
  
A frisson shivered through the room. Everyone fell silent. Even Elena, who often seemed bored at the mention of her human doppelgänger, watched the screen avidly.   
  
The presenters disappeared. And there she was. Katherine. Not the image of humanity’s struggle, but the real, living, breathing Katherine. A live feed.   
  
He looked for signs of illness or stress, but there were none: she looked as youthful and fresh-faced as ever. Her make-up had been carefully applied to make her look younger and more innocent, more girl-next-door – more Elena, in fact. Her hair fell in waves around her shoulders. A plain white screen behind her gave nothing away about her location.  
  
She smiled.  
  
“I know you’ve all been worried about me,” Katherine began. “I want to say first of all thank you for all the well wishes. I’m so grateful for your support. Most people think I’m on the run. That’s true, but it’s not the reason I haven’t released a video in the past five months. The truth is, we have a plan. We’ve been developing it for some time now. What you’re about to hear is the first step of that plan being put into action. So here we go.”  
  
She took a deep breath.  
  
“There’s one Original left. Elijah. I knew him. It’s kind of hard to talk about him because I thought he was kind once, but then he betrayed me, abandoned me, and put a bounty on my head like the rest of his family. I think you know, and I’ve followed the news too, that all the desperate attacks, the massacres, New Orleans – that was him. He engineered it. He wants to scare us into submission.  
  
“Well, I’m not scared. In fact, I have a message for him, for Elijah.” A fractional pause. Her eyes seemed to fill the screen. “Elijah, if you’re watching, and I know you are. Give it up. You’ve lost. You’re a smart guy, for a vampire. I think you know your time is up. And if somehow, somewhere inside you, there’s even the tiniest spark of moral decency, whatever shred of humanity you have left, then that part of you knows the right thing to do.  
  
“New Orleans, the French Quarter, 9pm a week today. Do the right thing. Give yourself up. I’ll be waiting.”  
  
The feed cut off.  
  
There was dead silence.


	3. In the Name of Family

_Dear Diary,_

_I don’t have any friends. How pathetic is that? But we moved here for Dan’s job a couple of years ago and then I got pregnant and then all my time was spent on Louis. It still is. I’ve been thinking about joining a mother-and-toddler group. That’s a thing, right? They won’t judge me for being young? I’m 22 and married, it’s not like I’m irresponsible._

_God, I’ve got an itch though. I want to go out and party. I’ve never partied in my life, not really. Always such a good girl. Is this all that life is? I mean, this is Hawaii, there’s a great tourism industry here. Beaches, hotels, bars. I’ve done the beach with Dan and Louis but I want some me-time._

_But if I go, who will look after Louis?_

_Ugh. Maybe I should suck it up and ask Joyce. I can imagine punching her smug bitch face while I’m on the phone and she’ll never know._

 

**3\. In the Name of Family**

“Jesus Christ,” one of the vampires muttered.

Everyone looked at him. He could sense the nervous tension in the room, but Elijah did nothing to dissipate it. All he could see was Katherine’s face, repeating the same words, over and over again.

“Do the right thing. Give yourself up.”

She had given a deadline of one week. No doubt the news channels would replay the message every day, just to make sure that the entire world saw it. The presenters were already speculating about what Katherine might have cooked up.

“Ugh, shut up,” Elena muttered. She jumped up, grabbed the remote from the coffee table, and switched the TV off. He stared at the black screen. The vampires buzzed and hovered around him.

Lucia’s voice rose above the others. She placed herself in front of the TV, forcing him to look at her, and snapped her fingers.

“You, sit down. You, do not take the name of the Lord in vain. We all have to stay calm. Clearly, this is a trap. Clearly, Elijah cannot go. But if Katherine is going to be there, this may be our best chance to snap the little bitch’s spine in half. Elijah…” Her voice faltered. “What do you think?”

He met her eyes. “You can say it, you know. Go on. Say what’s on your mind.”

She bit her lip. “You won’t go, will you?”

Would he? Would he return to New Orleans, where two of his siblings had died, and give himself up? Would he finally do as his mother had wanted and bring about an end to the vampire race?

Elena laid her hand on his. “He won’t. Let me handle this. I’ll keep Elijah alive while you plot Katherine’s death. That was our deal.”

Lucia pursed her lips, but nodded. “In a week from now, Katherine will be dead. Shall we drink to that?”

She addressed the whole room, her voice rising, and the vampires responded with cheers and fist-pumps. Lucia grinned, imp-like, flicking her head in the direction of the kitchen. It was their cue to move.

Within seconds, Elijah and Elena were alone. She stood up, tugging at his hand. “Come on.”

She took him back to his room. The first thing he did was remove the urn, which he had kept hidden in his jacket, and place it carefully inside a cabinet. If he listened, he could hear the vampires talking downstairs, saying all the things they had been too afraid to say in his presence, even though they all knew that he could hear them if he wanted to.

He straightened his sleeves and turned back to Elena.

She folded her arms. “You know, they’re afraid you might give yourself up.”

“I figured that.”

“Promise me that you won’t. Give me your word.”

He raised his eyebrows. “My word?”

“Yes, your word.” She stepped forward. Her voice softened. “Even with everything else you’ve lost, I know that’s one thing you have left. If you promise me you won’t go, I’ll believe you.”

He sighed. Moving over to the window, he sat down and brushed the curtain aside, looking out at the pale sky. He caught the word “dagger” downstairs, followed by a lot of hushing. They were considering putting him down – if they could find the means to do it. Not surprising: he would have employed the same tactic in their position.

“I won’t lie to you, Elena. I can’t give it. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“So this is it,” she said. “I have a week to convince you to stay alive.”

He looked at her. “I suppose you do.”

*

They argued constantly. It began with him telling her off.

“Rebekah, what you’re proposing is insane.”

Her temper flared up at once. “Oh, of course! I’m reckless, and stupid, and irrational. Spare me. At least I want revenge!”

They were in a log cabin by one of the lesser-known Alaskan lakes. Outside, snow fell. Inside, they had been slowly growing mad with a cramped living space, lack of food, and too much of each other’s company. Rebekah was sans make-up, her hair scraped back into a ponytail. Elijah’s suit was crumpled. They’d had to travel light.

He leaned over his chair, eyes narrowed. “Are you implying that I don’t?”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m _saying_ that you don’t. You’re weak when it comes to her. You always have been. Every doppelgänger that comes along, flutters her eyelashes at you, and you follow her like a lost puppy. You never learn.”

“My past with Katherine has nothing to do with this.”

In front of his sister was a meal she hadn’t touched. She picked up a fork and stabbed it into the table, splitting the wood. “It has everything to do with this. I’m going to kill her, Elijah. For your sake as well as mine.”

“You know full well she has the witches on her side.”

“Witches die easily.”

“They can also kill you. Don’t be such a fool.”

She stood up, pushing her chair back. “I’m an Original. She’s human. The only foolish thing is that she isn’t already dead.”

*

They found the spot in the woods where Elijah had mourned Rebekah. Elena brought a blanket. She spread it over the leaf litter and stretched out on her back, watching the branches above her stir in the breeze. He crouched down on the corner of the blanket that remained, watching her watching the sky.

“What’s your biggest regret?” she asked.

“I have a lot of regrets.”

“I know. What’s your biggest?”

He thought about it. “Failing to be there for Rebekah.”

She made an “mmm” sound. The light kept shifting, throwing different angles on her face. Smooth, impassive. Still no sign of sympathy. He frowned.

“What’s yours?” he asked.

She turned her head to look at him. “I don’t care, remember. That means no regrets.”

“But if you did care. What would it be?”

“Probably something predictable like letting my entire family die. You know me, Elijah. You can guess that.”

He could have guessed that. Elena Gilbert had gone to great lengths to protect her family. She had not succeeded. Nor had he. It was almost like they had a connection.

He exhaled, looking away. The seconds passed in silence.

Presently, Elena spoke. “What I don’t understand is, why haven’t you gone after Katherine? You did when Klaus died.”

“Rebekah and I did,” he corrected her.

She shifted over on to her stomach, propped up on her elbows so that she could look up at him. “She’s the reason Rebekah is dead. She’s the reason you’re being hunted. She put all of us in danger. Do you still care about her, is that it?”

“No,” he said. “Not any more. Not in that way.”

“Then what?”

A lot of things. A lot of history. Not only history: a legacy. The doppelgänger was made to destroy them. She meant only death, and yet he had loved all three of them. No. Not all three. Just…

“You know, it’s painful to look at your face,” Elijah murmured. “It shouldn’t be. I thought I could distinguish you. You’re individuals, you’re… different. But I’ve been such a fool.”

Elena was silent.

“Katerina was a far-off dream. My own issues, my hopes. They bore no relation to the reality at hand. I made the same mistake in New Orleans. If you want to talk about regrets, there’s one. I clung to the hope of family, that we could be together and happy again, Klaus, Rebekah, and me. Always and forever.”

“Well, love _is_ blind.”

“More to the point,” said Elijah, collecting himself, “Katherine is still human. She has doppelgänger blood. With the white oak stake gone, the blood of the doppelgänger is the only thing that can kill me.”

Elena looked at him. “That’s how the witches killed Klaus and Rebekah.”

“Yes.” He could see it again in his mind’s eye: the witches chanting, Klaus screaming, burning… “They tricked Niklaus into drinking Katherine’s blood. The blood that made him would also undo him. The same must have happened with Rebekah.”

It was only after Klaus had died that he understood that, understood why the witches were working with Katherine, why they needed her. He had almost killed Klaus using the same tactic himself when Elena was sacrificed, and yet he had not perceived that it was she who was his primary weapon. Esther had done the same thing when she linked all the Original siblings together using Elena’s blood, and still he had not made the connection; he had not grasped the complexity and gravity of the magic involved. The Petrova doppelgänger was, in a very literal sense, an Original’s ultimate weakness.

“And that’s why we have to kill her,” said Elena.

Elijah blinked, coming out of his reverie. When he shook his head, she frowned at him.

“Wait… Are you saying that you don’t want to kill her _because_ she could kill you?”

“Nature requires balance. There has to be a way to kill an Original.”

“No.” Elena shook her head. “I don’t buy that. That’s not your real motivation, is it?”

He swallowed. “The truth is, I want there to be a way out. I wanted to secure our immortality when I had myself and my family to take care of. Now they’re gone, I don’t want to live forever. I need the possibility of death, Elena.”

“But that’s not what Katherine is offering you. She’s offering you real death.”

He was silent for a moment. Perhaps in death he would join his brothers and sister again. Perhaps they would be together. Faced with that possibility and the alternative of walking the earth as the last surviving Original for all eternity…

“Elijah.”

Elena’s eyes were fixed on him. She looked as though she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“I have no appetite for anything else,” he answered at last. Elena opened her mouth and he held up his hand to forestall her. “No, I know what you’re going to say. But I need time to mourn. I’m… not in my right head. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could do what you want, any more than you could allow yourself to feel again.”

She made a frustrated sound and sat up. “Do you know how selfish you’re being? All I’m asking you to do is not die. I’m not asking you to help us. I’m not even asking you to wear pants. Don’t let your pity party kill us all.”

He closed his eyes. “I know.”

But he couldn’t forget what Katherine had said.

*

He learned the news in the worst possible way. Through social media.

“Today all over the world thousands of vampires dropped dead.” A jubilant reporter. “These reports are unconfirmed so far, but what we’re hearing is that Rebekah is the deceased Original. This news is from the United States, from New Orleans in fact, sombre scenes from a city in ruin. That’s where these reports are coming from and that’s where we think the Original sister died.”

Elijah’s mouth went dry.

Twitter had gone mad. His email had gone mad. Pictures of dead vampires, their bodies grey and twisted, were posted from all over the world. An hour later, Cerise, one of his guards, walked in and threw a corpse on the table next to him.

“Marco,” she said. “I just found him. Julian called. Jackson, Xun and Katya are gone too. I don’t know who else may be dead...”

She said more than that, but none of it penetrated the haze that had settled over him. Too many words, too many pictures. Phones buzzing, grainy video, lights and words flickering on screens, ethereal in their unreality and maddening, constant change.

The unchanging, physical truth: the corpse laid out like a slab on the table. He stared at it. The light changed; the corpse did not. Someone wrapped it in a black sheet and took it away.

“Who is responsible for this?”

Julian and Lucia had arrived. It was Julian he directed the question to. The other vampire stopped in his tracks, lowering his phone.

“We’re regrouping,” he said. “Give me half an hour; I’ll find out who we have left.”

“I asked a question,” said Elijah. “Who is responsible for this?”

The room turned silent. Cerise looked up from her laptop. Lucia paused from giving out blood bags, her face turning white. Julian tucked the cell phone inside his jacket pocket. 

“No one,” said Julian. “No one–”

He made a choked gurgle as Elijah cut him off, slamming him against the wall. “I will break your spine.”

Julian snarled. “Do it! We lost half our forces! The vampires tracking Rebekah were both from her bloodline and they dropped dead in the fucking street.”

“Julian, don’t!” Lucia tore at her brother’s jacket, petrified.

The veins around Julian’s eyes receded. He gritted his teeth, trying to hold still with Elijah’s hand gripping vice-like around his neck. Elijah could squeeze the windpipe until the other vampire choked, and his fingers flexed, itching to do so, but after a moment he dropped his hand. He stared, breathing raggedly; his shoulders were heavy.

Julian massaged his bruised throat.

“We’ve all lost someone,” he said. “Hundreds of our comrades, thousands. We understand your pain.” He glanced towards Lucia, who was still watching them anxiously. “If something were to happen to my sister…”

His sister.

His dear, beautiful, golden-haired sister.

Elijah stepped back, stumbling for a second; he hardly knew how to balance. “Rebekah,” he said. “Where is Rebekah?”

Lucia touched his arm to steady him. “I’m sorry, Elijah.”

She looked truly sad, her blue eyes glistening with tears.           

“Where is she?”

Lucia swallowed. “You mean her body? I suppose – in New Orleans.”

“Then we go to New Orleans.”

*

Two days to go. With the exception of the night that Katherine’s broadcast had aired, the vampires had been careful not to give anything away or speak of their plans inside the house. Lucia had to be planning something. That was certain.

He opened a book, turned a few pages and closed it again, frustrated. Nothing held his attention.

Elena tried increasingly bizarre methods of distracting him. That evening she entered his room without knocking and brought in a guest with her: a boy, no more than sixteen or seventeen years old, wearing a baseball cap, an expensive watch and a T-shirt covered in blood. There were wrinkles in the T-shirt. He hadn’t ironed it.

Elijah frowned at them. “Who is this?”

Elena slung an arm around the boy’s shoulder and ushered him forward. “This is Simon. He’s a newbie vampire.”

“You are aware that I’m not allowed to be seen by anyone who doesn’t already know me.”

“I’m aware,” said Elena. “That’s a rule you set yourself, right? Back when you were functioning.” She nudged the boy. “Say hi, Simon.”

“Hi,” Simon mumbled.

“Why is he here?”

“You need to compel him,” said Elena. “I mean, he’s seen you now, so you’ll have to either kill him or compel him to stop him from talking. We turned Simon against his will,” she added, pulling Simon back as the boy whimpered and tried to wrench free. “He’s kind of a big deal in the human world. Well, his dad is. So he could be valuable – but only if we can ensure his loyalty.”

“If you wanted his loyalty, you should have compelled him as a human.”

“Not part of the plan.”

“Plan?”

“Sorry,” said Elena. “It’s on a need-to-know basis only. And since you’re not in charge, you don’t need to know.”

“I’ll need to know what to say to compel him,” Elijah pointed out.

Elena smiled. “Tell him to forget your face. Tell him to be absolutely loyal to the vampire cause. And tell him to obey me, Julian and Lucia, from now until the moment he dies.”

Simon made a tiny noise that might have been a squeak, but no protest left his lips. He was too scared. He shook visibly as Elijah stood up and approached him, taking the boy’s arm. He compelled the boy exactly as Elena had instructed, and then Elena sent Simon away, a satisfied smile on her face.

How this had anything to do with Katherine’s message and Lucia’s plan to thwart her, he couldn’t fathom.

“Baby steps, Elijah,” said Elena when he gave her a quizzical look. “Baby steps.”

*

They travelled to New Orleans, the three of them – Elijah, Julian and Lucia – a small party, safer for crossing the border. Elijah did not speak once during the journey. They entered the city in the early hours of the morning – a dead city, abandoned and ruined.

“The French Quarter,” said Lucia. “That’s where she’ll be.”

But the way to the French Quarter was barred. At the last standing bridge over the river, they met an invisible barrier. An invitation barrier. Utterly impenetrable for any vampire. It was then, finally, that Elijah sank to his knees, defeated.

“She’s dead,” he muttered. “She’s dead and I wasn’t even there. I didn’t _see_ it.”

It was his fault. The night they had argued was the night she had disappeared. He should have gone after her himself. Should have taken her seriously. Instead he had sent two of his vampires to bring his wayward sister back after another one of her tantrums. Stupid. Stupid.

His hands sank into the dirt. The ashes of New Orleans. His throat closed up.

“We’ll send a human,” said Lucia, laying a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get to her, I promise. The witches can’t keep her from you.”

But they had and they did. Oh, they found Rebekah’s ashes – he had to believe so, when he was presented with the burnt remains. It may as well have been the dirt in the ground, dust, cobwebs. Dry and dead. But he had to believe it was her.

“Elijah.” Lucia spoke. “We can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.”

Even the effort of lifting his head to look at her felt too much. He didn’t remember how they left the city.

*

One day to go. He was shut up in his room. There was a vampire outside the door at all times. They were taking no chances.

He had nothing to do, so he listened. Downstairs, a new visitor had arrived. Julian, who had not seen them since they had changed location. Elena and Lucia were both there.

“Where is he?” Julian asked without preamble.

Elijah focused, attuning all his senses to the room below.

“Still here,” Elena answered. “He hasn’t gone anywhere.”

“Will he?”

“No.”

“Did he give his word? Did he promise you that he wouldn’t go?”

“No,” said Elena, “but–”

“Then that means he will.” Julian’s voice was dark with suppressed fury. “Lucia, why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“I trust Elena,” she said.

Julian scoffed. “Oh, really.”

“Yes, I do! You haven’t been here, Julian, you haven’t heard what she has to say. If you can’t trust Elena, then trust me. Trust your sister.”

“I’d trust a dagger,” said Julian.

“But we don’t have one, do we, so why even talk about it–”

“He can hear you,” said Elena quietly. “He’s upstairs.”

“Indeed,” said Julian. “If he’s still there.”

Footsteps thundered up the staircase. Elijah had been reclining on his bed, head turned just slightly so that he could listen. He got up silently, moving to stand behind his desk, hands curling over the desk chair. The door opened. Elijah looked up.

“You’re here,” said Julian.

“You sound surprised.”

“No, I’m – I’m relieved.”

Julian’s relief didn’t last long. Elijah broke his neck, then the neck of the unfortunate vampire on guard duty. Within seconds, he was gone.

*

New Orleans. 9pm. Tonight.

What he would do was never in question. He had to go. Last time, he had been unable to make the final leg of the journey. This time would be different.

“Elijah.”

“Katherine.”

Katherine, the human Katherine, stood mere feet away from him, in the ashes of the old French Quarter. The wind whipped her hair around her shoulders, howled through the abandoned streets, keened in the dark. How vulnerable she was, how slight her stature, flesh and bone running rich with blood. She shivered slightly in the cold night air, her arms folded over her puffer jacket, gloves protecting her delicate fingers, a scarf hiding her soft neck. But her eyes were implacable.

“Come in.”

She beckoned him with a smile, and Elijah followed. Across the last standing bridge, over the river, and through the iron gates to the cemetery, where the scorched grass was just beginning to regrow like straggly hair over the grave mounds. He had to see it again. He had to see where his siblings had died.

“I’m glad you came,” said Katherine. “You did a number on this place, but somehow the crypt stayed intact. Magic, I suppose.”

“There are witches in there?” he asked, stopping at the entrance to the crypt.

Katherine nodded. “They’re going to perform a spell and then this will all be over.”

She opened the gate. He was looking at a black hole, his own personal path to death. And Katherine, the angel who would guide him there. She was alive, warm, and made of flesh that he desired. But he would not devour her; she would devour him.

“Are you ready?” Katherine asked.

He nodded. Inside they went. Candles flickered along the cave walls, dark and gloomy. This, for all intents and purposes, was his brother’s grave and his sister’s grave – they would want to be together, Klaus and Rebekah – and so it was fitting that he should join them.

Sophie waited for him. An array of witches surrounded her. She was thinner than the last time he had seen her, pale-faced, her eyes dark and hollowed. But she was tireless still, relentless in her mission, the mission that had already claimed the lives of the last two members of his family and countless vampires and witches besides. She held a stake, gripping it so hard that her knuckles turned white.

“So you came,” Sophie said. Unlike Katherine, her face was hard. “Let me warn you, Elijah, if you’re here to kill us, we’re prepared.”

“I expected nothing less,” he said.

Sophie was no less formidable a foe than Katherine. He had learned this too late, blinded by the trust he had placed in her.

“We’re stronger than the last time we met,” Sophie went on, clearly determined to make her point. “Thanks to your massacre of the people here, there are a lot of dead witches just waiting for their chance to kill you.”

He spread his arms. “Well, I’m here. Do your worst.”

“Are you prepared to die?” Sophie asked.

He could hear the slight strain in her voice. Proceedings had reached a knife edge: either he would turn on them now, or acquiesce to his own death, giving them a final victory. Elijah licked his lips. His skin felt clammy. All he had to do was say yes. He had already made his decision. He had made it the moment he stepped out of hiding.

The witches stared at him, every one of them tense and nervous. Katherine stepped forward. She held out her arm, rolling up the sleeve. An offering. Her blood, for his life.

He took a breath.

“Daddy?” A child’s voice penetrated through the gloom.

Elijah started. He turned, and there was a tiny girl, barely five years old, walking wide-eyed into the crypt.

“Daddy, can we play basketball?” Another voice, squeakier.

“You said you’d buy me a pony, Daddy! Where is it?”

“Daddy, are you okay?”

A chorus of voices, all children, some running and some walking into the crypt, but all of them headed straight for him.

“Stop them!” said Katherine. “Shoo!” She waved her hands, trying to usher the children away.

Sophie stepped forward. “It’s a trick! Get them out of here!”

“I didn’t do this,” said Elijah, bewildered. He held up his hands as a seemingly endless horde of children crowded around him, forcing Katherine away.

The witches were already moving forward, telling the kids to back off, leaning down to scoop them up. But as the first witch’s hand touched the first child, something happened. Every single child stood still, reached into their pocket, and drew out a penknife. Click. The penknives flicked open. And each child pressed the tip of the blade to the soft hollow at their throats.

“Sweetheart, no!” One of the witches yanked away a knife from a little boy. Immediately the four children surrounding the boy slit their own throats. They gurgled, choked, collapsed; blood gushed out of them, but they did not scream. The witches screamed. A couple of them tried to use magic: three children fainted silently, the knives falling from their hands, but again the children surrounding them slit their own throats. Only one was saved by the nearest witch who grabbed him and forcibly tore the knife from his hand.

“Stop it!” Sophie screamed. “Stop it!”

Terror and blood filled the crypt in equal measure. Elijah watched in frozen horror as the children fell and those that remained stepped over their bodies, still packing themselves around him.

“Do the spell!” Katherine was yelling, bright spots of fury on her cheeks. “Ignore them, let them die!”

She marched over to Elijah and grabbed a kid in a hoodie, shoving him out of her way. But the surrounding children, those just in front of Elijah, did not turn on themselves.

“Bitch!” a little girl screamed.

“Bitch, bitch, bitch!”

They surged forward, blades flashing silver, and stabbed at Katherine in a frenzy of wild limbs. She screamed – the witches were in disarray – but Elijah had a clear path for just one second and he used it: charging forward, he scooped Katherine up and tore her away. Out of the mouth of that dark tomb, the blood-flecked air, the children’s screams: out into the darkness of New Orleans, through the cemetery, and into the ruined maze of the city’s streets.

He stopped, bit into his wrist, and shoved it over Katherine’s mouth without waiting for permission. She was shaking, bleeding out; he could smell the blood leaking from her in at least five places – lacerations on her arms where she had thrown them up to protect herself, on her thigh and leg, and most dangerous of all a wound in her stomach. She retched, but she had swallowed enough to heal her wounds, and she sank down, head lolling. He let her go. Katherine braced herself against a fallen piece of masonry, breathing hard. Elijah crouched down with her, watching the cuts on her arms close up.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

“You’re welcome.”

She exhaled. “You’re not dead.”

“Unfortunately not,” said Elijah. “I think someone had other plans.”

Katherine groaned, shaking her head. “On second thought, maybe we should have arranged this a little more discreetly. More of a private date.”

“You wanted a show.”

“I did.” She looked up. Helicopters circled the sky, searchlights flashing down. The press pack could not be too far off. “So what do you say? Shall we give them a show? The witches can still perform the spell out here.”

“Is that before or after all those children die?”

She shrugged. “Do you want to die or not?”

His breath misted in the cold air. Standing up, Elijah stepped back, his boots scraping over broken glass and gravel. The night was thick with sounds and smells, the dust and the cold and the hum of the machines in the air all clear and present in his senses. There was Katherine, his death. Holding out her hand. And somewhere beyond the city limits, there must be Elena, cursing him for being so pathetic.

He might as well have an angel and a devil at his shoulder, but the irony was, he couldn’t tell the difference.

“Not this time,” he said. “If you want to kill me, Katherine, you’ll have to catch me first.”

“All right,” said Katherine. Her eyes glittered in the moonlight. “Game on.”


	4. Hedonism

_Dear Diary,_

_I did it. I went out and partied. Granted, it wasn’t exactly an all night long affair since I can’t stay out after dark, but the days are long in the summer and with heat like this I could do with a drink. No pregnant = no ban on alcohol._

_I kind of didn’t tell Dan. I mean, I said I was going out and that I needed his mother to take care of Louis, but I told him it was because I was going shopping. Which was true. I needed to go shopping to buy my going-out outfit. I just didn’t mention that last part._

_By the way, I am a complete lightweight. The one flaw in my plan: Joyce was there when I got home. Obviously. Well, she got instantly suspicious, but I said that I had a headache from being out in the sun without a hat and she seemed to buy it. It was damn good improvising considering I was drunk._

_Anyway. The fun part. The fun part was that I went out to a couple of bars and I met some cool people. I am actually good with people. I mean, they seemed to like me. There was one guy, Julian, who I’d met before! I didn’t recognize him at first, but he used to be a work colleague of Dan’s and I think I’d only met him once before. Anyway, we talked for a while and had a few drinks. It gets a little hazy after that but everyone had a good time._

_It was nice. Nice to talk to an adult who’s not Dan and not my mother-in-law. Not that I don’t love Dan. But I’ve been feeling so… trapped._

 

**4\. Hedonism**

The moment Elijah stepped beyond the invitation barrier, Elena was there. “Get over here,” she hissed, and in a swirl of air they were gone, alighting seconds later on the outskirts of the city, next to a car with blacked out windows. Elena shoved him in unceremoniously.

“Did you kill her?” she asked without preamble.

Elijah blinked. The car’s engine thrummed into life; they pulled into the highway. He glanced at the rear view mirror and recognized Dario’s profile in the reflection. The other vampire frowned slightly, biting his lip.

“No,” said Elijah.

“Did the kids kill her? We used a trigger command–”

“I saw what you did,” he interrupted her. “It didn’t work.”

“What happened?”

“What happened? A group of children – _children_ , barely five years old – turned kamikaze on us. Was that your idea?”

She turned her head slightly, adjusting her seatbelt. “I had some input.”

“Your _input_ resulted in an unspeakably vile act. Those children were innocent.”

Elena laughed. “We’re driving out of the city that _you_ destroyed and you’re honestly telling me that you’ve never killed a child? You’ve never killed an innocent person?”

He couldn’t answer that.

“We were following your lead, Elijah. Be ruthless. Make an impact. It worked.”

Was there a devil or an angel on his shoulder? No, he was the devil. Every vampire alive was of his bloodline; he had made them. They had all conspired in this.

“I should have given myself up,” he murmured. “I let their lives go to waste.”

“Well, you didn’t,” said Elena. “So there’s a part of you that wants to live after all. If you’d figured that out earlier, none of those kids would have died.”

He leaned back, rubbing his eyes. His skull might have been made of granite, his limbs of stone. The car thrummed softly. Rain spattered against the windows.

“You knew, didn’t you,” he said. “You knew I’d change my mind.”

“Sometimes it takes being at death’s door to realize that you really don’t wanna go through there,” Elena replied. “But no, I didn’t know. I hoped. I only got one of the three things I wanted tonight, but at least I got that one.”

He glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

“I wanted the witches dead and I wanted Katherine dead. I guess since you failed at the latter, you also failed at the former.”

“Failed implies that I attempted to kill her. I did not. I let her go.”

“You…” Elena sucked in a breath, looking deeply irritated. In the driver’s seat, Dario shook his head. “Of course you did. This stupid idea you have about maintaining the balance. There is no balance, Elijah. Not after what Katherine did. Did you talk to her?”

“We exchanged words.”

“What did she say?”

He shrugged. “Nothing of importance.”

“Anything she said is important. What did she say?”

“As I was occupied at the time with trying not to cause the slaughter of innocent children, I’m afraid I don’t recall.”

Elena folded her arms. “Okay. You keep that righteous hat on. I’m sure it’ll keep you warm until we get back to the hideout.”

*

They left him alone for two days, during which Elijah avoided all forms of media. It was all too predictable at this point. Finally, when it seemed like he wouldn’t kill the first person to step into his room, Lucia took that initial step. She brought him a blood bag. A peace offering, she said.

“For what it’s worth,” she added, “I’m not proud of what we did to rescue you. It was necessary, but it wasn’t pleasant.”

“You made your point,” said Elijah. “Next time, dagger me.”

“Oh – we – we couldn’t find a dagger.” Her tone became apologetic. “The drawbacks of having no witches on our side.” She paused. “Elena wants to see you. Is that all right?”

He shrugged. “Where are we, at point five of her ten point plan to royally fuck me over?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

So Elena came in. She wore a long navy coat and there were snowflakes in her hair. The weather had turned suddenly cold.

“Okay,” said Elena. “We’ve established that you want to live. Whatever you say, your actions prove that. So now we can move on to the next step.”

“Wait a second,” he said. “It’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s – Elena. Do you think I can ignore what you did to save me?”

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He didn’t need to watch the news to figure out what the headlines would be, how Katherine and her allies would spin this. They had committed an atrocity.

“Why not?”

“You are proof that vampires deserve to die, so how can I justify to myself my own existence?”

Elena sighed. “Oh my god. Okay. Yes, we do terrible things. We’re vampires. It’s part of the package. I’m not going to justify to you why I deserve to live or why you deserve to live. You want to live. That’s enough.”

She moved to sit down next to him. Elijah had to make space for her. The curtains were closed, the balcony doors shut. The room felt very small.

He looked at her. “Is it?”

“It has been for a thousand years.”

“I had my family then.”

She scoffed. “Did they make you feel good? Did they make you feel virtuous? Because if you’re protecting your family, you have to be a good person, right? No matter what you do in their name. Family, revenge, honour. That’s worth burning cities for. That’s worth killing children for. How is this any different?”

He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“This is my family,” said Elena. “I’m doing what I can to protect us. We’re your family too. All the vampires. Everyone in your bloodline. Isn’t that what you always wanted?”

“You’re not my family, Elena.”

“We’re not biologically related,” she conceded. “But we are blood related. When people lose their family, they make their own. They have to.”

He looked away. “You’d know.”

“It’s about time you learned it too.” She leaned forward. “Are you still mad at me?”

He sighed. It was difficult to muster up the energy to be angry. What did feelings matter? It wouldn’t bring anybody back. It wouldn’t solve anything.

“Yes,” he said. “But we’re still talking.”

“Are you ready to move on?”

She was right about one thing. He wanted to live. What must Klaus, Kol and Rebekah have thought as they watched him go meekly to his death like a lamb to the slaughter? _Idiot._ Sick, grieving, sentimental fool.

“Elijah?”

Elena was still inches away from him, pressing him gently for an answer. The snow in her hair had melted, leaving it slightly damp. She would be cold to the touch.

He met her eyes. “Tell me what you have in mind.”

She stood up, and he watched her walk over to a chest of drawers, leaning against it. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Let’s establish a couple of ground rules,” said Elena. “One, you’re still in an unfit state to lead us. Until that changes, I’m in charge. Okay?”

“Define ‘in charge’.”

“You do what I tell you, without question.”

Not much of a difference there, then. He shrugged.

Elena continued. “Two, you don’t ask me to do anything. No requests, orders, bargains or negotiations. We play this game my way.”

“As you wish.”

“Give me your word.”

He tilted his head slightly. “Isn’t this negotiating?”

“I said no questions. Give me your word.”

His word. The only thing he had left, she’d said. The only thing he could offer her. Perhaps this time he would even keep it.

“I give you my word.”

“Good. Okay. We’re going out.”

*

“This seems unwise,” said Elijah.

“Relax. No one knows your face.”

“Yours, on the other hand…”

Elena shrugged. “I changed my hair. Besides, where we’re going, it’ll be dark enough that no one will notice.”

Their destination, it turned out, was a small but popular bar in the centre of town. Neon lights promised all who entered a good time, while the sign by the entrance offered students two-for-one deals on cocktails and other favoured beverages. Outside, a blonde girl in a silver dress and high heels cocked her head at them, and Elijah blinked when he recognized her.

“Caroline.”

“Elijah.” She looked him up and down. “You look the same. I thought you’d be different.”

He shrugged. “Same goes with the territory.”

Caroline unzipped her shoulder bag, holding up a small mirror to reapply her lipstick. “I already did a sweep,” she informed them, “and the bar is vervain-free. Nobody in there will recognize us. Plus there are a couple of guys who are totally hot.”

Elena took his hand and pulled him forward aggressively. “You’re with me.”

Caroline had to stop to avoid smudging her lipstick, holding back a laugh. So they went in, and it had been a while since Elijah had visited an establishment like this. For a vampire, it was an assault on the senses: the smell of alcohol and sweat, the music playing, people talking and laughing, and the sight of so many people packed together, so much flesh on display, warm bodies ripe for drinking. Caroline immediately made a beeline for one of the bartenders – possibly the “totally hot” guy she had mentioned before.

“Would you like a drink?” Elijah asked.

Elena smiled. “Only if it’s fresh.”

He got her meaning. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“On the house,” Caroline crowed, bringing over three shot glasses to their table.

Well, there was alcohol in front of him and he was in the company of two beautiful girls. Maybe if he drank enough he would forget what had happened in the crypt.

“I’m curious,” said Elijah, raising his glass to toast Caroline. “How did you both come to be here?”

“We’re best friends,” said Caroline. “Duh.”

“It’s not a long story,” said Elena. “Caroline joined the ‘my entire family is dead’ club, and we went on from there.”

“Ah.”

“No boring stories,” Caroline said, waving her hand. “Mystic Falls is past and we are never going back.”

She downed her shot. He didn’t pry.

“All right,” said Elijah. “The next round is on me. Elena wanted something fresh. What’s your taste, ladies? Anyone in this room.”

They exchanged glances, both girls' eyes gleaming with predatory interest. Elijah finished his drink as the pair of them whispered, eyeing up the other people in the bar. They selected two men from a group of three: college students by the look of them, laughing and joking about something sport-related. One or two of the men had thrown glances their way, but Elijah guessed that his presence put them off.

He got up and moved over to the bar, ordering a second round of shots. Glancing back, Elijah saw that Caroline and Elena had been left alone. He gave Elena a nod when the bartender served him, and she came over to collect the drinks. Elijah leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“Find somewhere discreet to sit.”

After that, it was easy. He compelled the two men to join Elena and Caroline – not that they required much persuasion. The third student, left alone without his friends, attempted to follow and Elijah pulled him back.

“Come with me.”

He returned to the girls’ new table a few minutes later, carrying a glass of what looked like red wine.

“What’s that?” Elena asked, leaning over to take the glass. She was sitting in the first guy’s lap. The guy laughed when she took a sip without permission, but he was also looking askance at Elijah.

“Good stuff?”

“Mmm. Not for you.”

Meanwhile, Caroline had already taken advantage of Elijah sitting next to her – and therefore shielding her from anyone passing by – to sink her fangs into her guy’s throat. He could smell the sudden fresh tang of blood.

Elena handed the glass back to him, her fingers briefly lingering on his. “Not bad.” She leaned back into her guy’s shoulder, meeting his eyes. “I bet you could do better though.”

“Sure, anything you want,” the guy replied. He had failed to notice his friend being drained in front of him. Either because he was compelled or too dazzled by Elena’s presence. It didn’t really make a difference.

Elena wriggled in the guy’s lap, ensuring his further attention, and leaned up, one hand moving to turn his cheek towards her. It looked as though she was angling for a kiss, and Elijah was certain that her intended victim believed that, but it wasn’t his mouth Elena was paying attention to. She kissed him on the cheek and moved seamlessly to his throat. Elijah suppressed a smile. Nicely done.

He drank the blood in his glass to quench the thirst that had appeared as he watched the two of them. The smell of blood was very strong. Perhaps for the first time since he and Rebekah had gone on the run, Elijah found himself revelling in the moment, his focus entirely captured by the present.

He then made the mistake of looking over at Caroline, who tossed her head back as she finished feeding, fangs showing around her bloody mouth. Her blonde hair caught the dim light, and he was reminded inevitably of Rebekah, the way her long hair shone as the light caught it, the similar satisfied look on her face after she had just fed.

He swallowed. Caroline’s eyes focused on him.

“Do you have a napkin?” she asked.

“I…”

There was one on the table, right next to his elbow. Caroline took the napkin and wiped her mouth, shoving her guy aside. Elijah stood up to allow the guy to stumble past him, and compelled him to forget the encounter before he left.

“Thanks,” Caroline said.

He found his voice cracking, and had to clear his throat. “You’re welcome.”

Rebekah liked to hunt her own food. But sometimes she did ask Elijah to do exactly what he had done tonight: bring over her victim and stand guard while she fed. Kol more often took the wingman role than Elijah did, but of course Klaus had been her most constant companion. He thought of all the years he’d missed. A thousand years they had lived, and yet they had spent so little quality time together. So little.

It was funny. Elena had been right when she had said that he was good at turning off his emotions. It wasn’t that he suppressed them. After a thousand years, he had honed and mastered his emotions to the point that he didn’t need to control himself: he simply was in control.

And now that had slipped away from him, he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to do with his feelings, didn’t even know how to express them.

No one mourned Mikael or Esther. He had been fine after Finn’s death. Fine, relatively speaking, after Kol’s. Even after Klaus died, he held Rebekah’s hand and told her to run, and run they did.

What did he have left, really? A hunted group of vampires who were so desperate they would go to any length to survive. They couldn’t replace his real family.

“Elijah.” Long fingers rested on his shoulder. “Come on, we’re leaving.”

He blinked. Their table was empty. Elena pulled at his hand and he followed her outside, eyes trained on her like some kind of brunette beacon, bringing him back to the present. A few yards away he spotted Caroline nestled under the arm of a different man: young, blond and cocky, wearing a tweed flat cap that he probably thought made him look rakishly stylish but in Elijah’s opinion made him look like an idiot.

The moment she saw them Caroline bounced over and gave Elena a quick one-armed hug. “I’m gonna go for a night of meaningless sex. Love ya and leave ya!”

“Make sure you send him away whole in the morning!” Elena called, as Caroline left them with a flirty little wave and a grin. “She kind of has a habit of killing the blond ones,” Elena added, by way of explanation. “Especially the ones with blue eyes. It’s a thing, I don’t know.”

Elijah watched the pair of them walk away, Caroline as tall as flat-cap in her high heels.

“Meaningless sex,” he repeated. “I could go for that.”

Elena laughed. “Really? Okay, no judging. I’ll take that as a challenge. Mission: get Elijah laid.”

He gave her a deadpan look. “Do you really think it’ll be that challenging?”

“Girls don’t go for wretched and miserable,” Elena replied. “Sorry to say, but you’ve lost some of your usual charm.”

“I could do brooding.”

“Yes. Yes, you could.” She leaned up and undid the top button of his collar. “Less uptight. More dark and mysterious. Give me your best Blue Steel look.”

Elijah had to confess that he didn’t know what that meant.

*

The thing about Elena, when she decided to do something, she got it done.

Rachel was lovely. She was in her late twenties, a lawyer, very sharp and fascinating to talk to. If he hadn’t wanted company for only one night, he would have considered getting to know her.

He could sense Elena watching him while they were talking, this time at a hotel bar.

Of course, he was complicit in the entire affair. It had been his suggestion. All he had to do now was start binge drinking – a definite health hazard for the local human population – and he would have reached the bottom of his depressive spiral. The road to recovery couldn’t be too far off.

Something like that.

*

“Sometimes I wonder,” said Katerina.

Elijah blinked sleepily, gazing up at her.

She looked at him. “I wonder what you think of me.”

He frowned. “You know what I think of you.”

Her cheek rested on her hands, half-obscured by her long hair. She lay facing him, and there was a vulnerability in her eyes that he didn’t see often. He reached out, brushing a strand of hair away from her face, trying to exude some kind of comfort.

But she looked down, biting her lip. 

“I’m not what I was.” She picked at a loose thread on the pillow. “You could easily have hated me.”

“Katerina,” he said. “I could never hate you.”

*

Elijah sat on the edge of the bed in the sterile hotel room, staring into space. He was fully dressed, though the bed was unmade. His partner of the night before had already departed. The only sound in the room was his watch ticking quietly away. Useless seconds wasting into useless minutes. He wasn’t getting any older.

The door clicked open.

“Good morning.” Elena walked past him and threw open the curtains, giving him a look. “So how are you feeling?”

“I had meaningless sex,” said Elijah morosely. “I feel hollow and empty.”

The bleak light of day did nothing to revive him. A lump of wood might have been more inclined to move.

“Okaaaay.” She frowned, noticing an empty bottle on the bedside table. “Is that vodka? Did you drink an entire bottle of neat vodka?”

Elijah nodded.

“For God’s sake.” She sank down on to the bed next to him. “You wanted this, Elijah. What do you want? What’s gonna make you happy, huh?”

He didn’t reply. In truth, the vodka might have been a bit much.

She rolled her eyes. “Do you want to have sex with _me_? At this point, if it’ll help, I’ll do it. Now that most of the corpse odour has gone, I wouldn’t say no.”

He looked at her. “I can’t be in an emotionally fulfilling relationship with you if you don’t have your emotions on. Therefore sex with you would be equally meaningless.”

“Okay, Mr Spock.” She sighed. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

“I refer you back to my first point.”

“Even drunk you still sound like a lawyer. Good to know.”

“I think on balance it’s best if I stay away from you,” Elijah went on. “As you recall, my tryst with Katherine did not go so well.”

“You have thought about this.”

“I’m still incapable of killing either of you, despite having every reason to do so. You’ll understand if I’m wary.”

“Oh, right, so you shouldn’t be with a girl unless you’re willing to kill her, got it. Rachel had a lucky escape.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“You’re drunk. And I’m always mocking you.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Could you perhaps leave me in peace?”

“What was it like, being with Katherine?” Elena asked. “Did she make you feel like she understood you? Did she make you feel good about yourself? I could do that too. I know who you are. I probably know what gets you off, but since you turned me down, I guess you’ll never find out.”

“I’m devastated.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“I’m drunk.”

“Yes, you are. Why are you drinking?”

He thought about it. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Something to do with a depressive spiral. Drink had to be involved for that. What were the five stages of grief again?

Elena sighed, nudging him. “Didn’t you feed well enough last night?”

“I didn’t feed on the girl, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He’d slept, and he’d dreamt about Katherine. That was messy enough already.

“I thought she seemed perky. Come on, she was a ready meal. Why didn’t you kill her?”

“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t kill that often.”

Not the innocent, at least. He tried to mentally calculate how many humans he had killed in his lifetime. One thousand? Ten thousand? New Orleans had tipped him way over that scale, if he counted himself responsible for every death. Which he was.

Before that, he had made a point of not killing innocents where possible. Sparing human lives, even saving them on occasion. His death count had been lower than any of his siblings except Finn, who had been dead in a box for nine centuries and therefore didn’t count. So he could hold himself up as morally superior to his siblings, the noble man of the family.

Well, his mother had ripped that illusion to shreds.

Still, he had let Rachel go. Out of habit, perhaps. It was bad manners to fuck a girl and then kill her.

Elena lay back, stretching her arms over her head. “So how do you decide who to kill?”

He had to turn slightly to look at her. “Convenience.”

“Ah. Very honest. I thought you were going to say honour.”

Elijah twisted his mouth into a smile. “We’re vampires. We eat. Fight. Wage war. Protect ourselves, our power. Kill those who would oppose us.”

The truth of his species. The truth of his way of life, for centuries, until the Original family dissolved and all hope of expanding his family had evaporated.

Elena seemed to read his expression. “All the things you’re currently not doing.”

He shrugged. “I gave my word that I would obey you, Elena. All you have to do is give the order.”

“No,” she said. “You’re not ready. It has to come from you.” She held her hand up in front of her. “Pick me up?”

He gave her a look. She was like a child too lazy to move, feet dangling down the side of the bed, her back stretched out over the covers. But she gave him a small smile, eyes big and beguiling, and he reached out to grasp her outstretched hand. She made it hard for him, deliberately refusing to support her own weight so that he couldn’t simply pull her to her feet. Instead he had to lift her up completely, Elena clinging with her arms around his neck.

The world spun around him. Elijah blinked. That hadn’t happened in a while.

She giggled. “Ooh.”

He frowned at her. “Are you drunk?”

“I’ve had a sudden weakness of the limbs. Save me, Elijah.” She pressed her cheek into his shoulder.

“Shut up. I will drop you.”

“No, you won’t.”

Her tone was so certain, it was practically dismissive. He made an annoyed sound, but she was right: he wouldn’t drop her. Unless the drink made him lose his footing. He navigated the hotel room door, the corridor and the elevator, all with Elena curled up in his arms, before she declared that he could set her down.

She laughed at him. “You’re such a gentleman.”

“We need to check out,” he said.

“Right, right.”

He returned the room key and compelled the receptionist not to ask any questions, for Rachel had paid only for herself. Even a relatively simple transaction like this had its risks in this day and age, but Elena watched for any onlookers and the compulsion seemed to work. They departed the hotel.

Elena looked across the street, assessing where they were.

She turned to him. “You know, Caroline and I live not far from here. Why don’t you come back to our place?”


	5. Photographs

_Dear Diary,_

_Dan and I had an argument. He found out about me going out. It’s stupid. I paid for a babysitter because I didn’t want to ask Joyce again, but the interfering bitch must have been spying on me. The babysitter was fine! I did all the safety checks, I didn’t invite her in, God knows I worry about Louis more than anyone and it’s not like Dan’s ever at home during the day to take care of anything. What am I supposed to do, go crazy with boredom?_

_So we had a huge fight. He called me a liar, a selfish bitch, an irresponsible mother. Oh fuck you Dan, you sound just like your mother. He asked me why I hadn’t told him. I said because I knew this is how he’d react! Can’t I have a little freedom? I’m always doing what he wants._

_Anyway, then he brought up the v-word. What if I ran into vampires? What if they sneaked up on me and got me while I was out on my own? Well, a) it was daytime and b) there are no vampires in Hawaii, jackass. That’s why we moved out here. We wanted a safe place to start a family. Also, way to be insensitive. Going out together didn’t help my parents, did it?_

_All the yelling woke up Louis and made him cry, which is the thing I am seriously pissed about. Be a jackass, Dan, but not in front of Louis. I made him put Louis to bed, and then he dragged his sorry ass downstairs to sleep on the couch. I won’t speak to him tomorrow and he won’t be getting any sex from me either until he says sorry. See how he likes that._

 

**5\. Photographs**

Despite how she had phrased it, Elena’s offer had not been a proposition. It was an invitation to live with them. Gone were his guards. There was no sign of Julian or Lucia. Just two girls, an expensive apartment, and lots of alcohol.

By the time he had unpacked, the sun had set, Caroline had arrived home, and music was playing at full blast in the living room. He wandered in to see what was going on.

Elena jumped on the couch, her hair flying around her. Caroline played air guitar. “We are never ever ever–”

“Getting back together!”

“Never ever ever ever,” they sang.

He collapsed into an armchair, that being the only seat free, and watched their antics. Seemingly unaware of their audience, the girls danced, taking advantage of their vampire powers to zip around the room.

“Come on, Elijah!” Elena called. “Join us.”

He shook his head. “I’ll pass.”

She huffed. Meanwhile, Caroline was using a lamp as a microphone. Or so he assumed. Elena blurred over, resting her arms over the back of his chair so that she could express her displeasure at close quarters.

“If I’d known being back in the suit was going to make you this dull, I wouldn’t have been so eager about it. I’m starting to miss the scruff.”

He tipped his head back to look at her. “Now you want me to grow a beard?”

“Just a little scruff. Rough around the edges.”

She leaned down and yanked at his tie. He swatted her away. She laughed.

“I am going to get you living life, Elijah,” she promised. “And not regretting it in the morning.”

*

“Come on, brother. Live a little.” Kol spread his hands. “What is life without blood in your belly and a beautiful girl on your arm, hmm?”

“I can’t imagine,” he said drily.

“Dull!” said Kol. “And since I clearly wear the fun brother crown, I am going to take you out on the town.”

Elijah folded his arms. He half-expected Kol to burst out laughing. His youngest brother was unpredictable at the best of times.

Kol drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch. “I will continue rhyming.”

“Fine,” said Elijah, getting up. “And what of Niklaus?”

“Forget Niklaus! Let’s enjoy some brotherly bonding time.”

Fair enough. Klaus was preoccupied trying to track down the werewolves in town – he never said why, but it was no secret that he wanted to trace back his bloodline. His mission was the only reason any werewolves still survived in New Orleans: the other Originals, including Elijah, had no problem killing werewolves on sight. Rebekah, loyal as ever, had gone to help him.

So Elijah and Kol suited up and strolled down Bourbon Street, turning away from the smaller dive bars in disdain. He wanted good music, Kol insisted, jazz, and fine women.

“And no other vampires,” Kol added. “Out!” He dismissed two burly night-walkers with a flick of his hand, both of them instantly retreating from the youngest Original brother. “We are going to dine on the best of humanity tonight. No competition.”

“You start from the left,” Elijah said. “I’ll take the right.”

No further explanation was needed. Between the two of them, they compelled every human in the establishment, and soon enough the entire place existed only for their amusement. A singer in a long flowing gown crooned as she played the piano. Waiters hurried to serve them drinks. The blood began to flow. Several glasses of wine later, Kol reclined at the back of his booth, a laughing girl dripping blood from her wrist into his open mouth. Meanwhile Elijah slow-danced with the piano singer.

That was how Klaus and Rebekah found them. His sister came running in, breathless, her eyes bright and a huge smile on her face.

“Elijah! There you are. Dance with me, I have news.”

He murmured a quick farewell to Annabelle, the piano singer, and moved away from her before Rebekah could shimmy over and shove the girl out of the way. Instead he caught Rebekah’s waist as she ran over to him, and Klaus’s eyes as his brother followed behind. Klaus had the satisfied look of a cat that had just fed, and Elijah raised his eyebrows.

“Good news,” said Rebekah. “Nik showed the mark – do you remember, the one we found on the cop in Mississippi – he showed it to a witch and she told us that it came from North America, not far from where Nik and I were born. The bloodline still exists, it has to.”

Again, Elijah looked over at his brother. Klaus was lounging nearby, already with a glass in hand, but he was watching Rebekah. “So he is one step closer to discovering his heritage.”

“It’s a breakthrough,” Rebekah agreed. She grinned as Elijah twirled her around. “Shall we pop a champagne?”

Elijah quickly agreed. They were all four in high spirits, and Elijah felt a rush of love for every one of them as his sister and brothers crowded into a booth and popped the cork, spraying the table with champagne. Klaus, his hair tousled, wearing a boyish grin; Rebekah, stretching an elegant gloved hand to take her glass; Kol, looking up with a mischievous glint in his eyes – all of them, together.

Kol beckoned one of the young women over. “Darling, pour a little blood for us…”

*

He woke up and for a moment his eyes saw his room in New Orleans as it had once been: a view of the park beyond the iron railing of the balcony, half-obscured by the white curtain drawn across it. Below, the sound of carriages and horses’ hooves clattering on the cobbled street. Inside, oak furniture, a grand four poster bed.

But there was no pretty girl sleeping next to him with bite marks on her neck.

No New Orleans. No city where vampires ruled. No place for the Original family.

He was in Elena’s apartment still, and he lay with his eyes open, trying to recapture that history in his mind’s eye. His brothers and sister in New Orleans, perhaps the last time they had been truly happy together. He had dreamed only of their deaths for so long. But there had been good times too.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

Elena. Of course. And she hadn’t bothered knocking. He sat up, rubbing his eyes.

“Someday you’re going to get up at a reasonable time and I won’t have to wake you.”

Elena padded across the room barefoot and threw open the curtains, bathing them in sunlight. Her clothes were skimpy at best; he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Tiny shorts and a vest top. It was like she was tormenting him deliberately.

He looked away. “What counts as a reasonable time?”

“Ten?”

“It’s nine thirty.”

She shrugged. “Nine. Whatever. We’re vampires; we don’t have a schedule. I just wanted to ask…” She jumped on to his bed. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail, the image of a peppy cheerleader. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Awake.”

“Good. Any other emotions? Happier ones?”

“I dreamed about my family,” Elijah said.

Her eyes widened. She adjusted her position, sitting cross-legged to face him. “Is that good or bad?”

“I don’t know. I remember that we were happy. I miss that.”

She paused. Something in her face tightened. “Right.”

Elijah hesitated. Had he glimpsed a flicker of empathy in her eyes? Elena had made it clear that she did not want him to discuss her emotions or lack of them, and so he had dropped the subject. But no vampire could keep the switch turned off forever. Someday, she would have to face all the pain she had suppressed.

“I would like to get up,” he said instead.

“What?” It took her a moment to catch on. “Oh.” Sitting on the covers, she was effectively blocking his way out. Elena slid off the bed.

“Where do you keep your blood?” he asked.

“Kitchen,” she replied. “In the fridge.”

He got up. Elena leaned against the wall, watching him openly. Elijah decided that for propriety’s sake he had better put on a shirt. Unfortunately this meant that he had to approach Elena. She stepped aside when he approached, and folded her arms while he opened the wardrobe.

“You’re hungry already?”

“I could do with a bite.”

“I thought Originals didn’t need as much blood as other vampires.”

“I can survive longer without it,” he said, “but I still have an appetite.” She covered her mouth with her hand, hiding a grin. Elijah frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.” She turned away, picking out a tie to hand to him. “Here.”

“Thank you.”

He draped the tie around his neck. “I need to eat,” said Elijah. “Is there anything I should know after that? What am I doing here, Elena?”

“Well,” she said, taking it upon herself to button his shirt for him, “consider this place yours. You can do whatever you want, as long as you don’t mess anything up or change the order of the DVDs. Caroline gets grumpy about that. But yeah, go out, stay in, your choice. Obviously don’t get caught.”

She worked briskly as she spoke, her eyes fixed on his shirt. Elijah still could not look away from her. He was sure that he had glimpsed something. Perhaps she cared more than she was letting on. It always started that way.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m going out,” said Elena. “But you can’t come with me. I’m out on business. It’s a private trip.”

“You mean you’re going to see Julian and Lucia.”

She finished the last button and stepped back. “Like I said, it’s private.”

“Well,” he said, “in that case I’ll see you tonight.”

“You’re smiling,” said Elena.

He caught himself. “Hmm?”

“You’re smiling.” Her smile was wide, infectious; she lifted a hand to bid him goodbye, and he had to resist the urge to touch her on the arm. “I’ll see you tonight.”

He stared after the space she had occupied for several seconds after she had gone, and his smile lingered.

*

Elijah walked downstairs to find Caroline in the kitchen, typing something on her phone. It was the first time he had seen her alone.

“Elena?” he asked. They were probably in touch.

She shook her head. “Tonight’s dinner.”

He removed a blood bag from the fridge and walked over to sit down opposite her. “So you’re inviting dinner over.”

“Uh huh.”

A tiny frown creased her forehead. Elijah observed her. He knew of Caroline Forbes as Elena’s friend, and later as the object of Klaus’s obsession. A lot of things had changed since then. A lot of people had died.

He spoke quietly. “You’ve turned off your emotions too.”

Caroline didn’t look up. “Um, yeah. Are you just going to state the obvious? Because that gets old fast.”

“Unfortunately, being on the run meant that I was never able to return to Mystic Falls. So I’m a little out of date. Last I knew, Elena had lost her humanity, but I didn’t think that you had.”

“Well, she did it first.”

“What happened?”

She paused, looking up this time, then stood up to grab a clean glass out of the cupboard. “My mom died.” She turned back, holding out her hand for the blood bag. Elijah passed it over to her. “People found out that she’d been covering up the truth about vampires. Her own deputies shot her dead.”

She gazed evenly at Elijah as she spoke, her tone matter-of-fact. She might as well have been reciting a story on the news, some tragedy that had happened in a faraway place to some people that no one cared about.

Elijah shifted back in his chair. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m over it.” She tipped a little blood into her glass, then gave the bag back to him. “I called Elena and I asked her to come back to Mystic Falls. We killed everyone on the council and then we ran.” She shrugged. “We’ve been together ever since.”

“Where did you go?”

“Well, we were looking for somewhere no one would recognize Elena. Which was pretty hard when her face was on all the news channels. We ended up going from town to town, not really settling anywhere.”

“And now?”

She looked blank. “Now what?”

“You met Lucia,” he prompted her.

“That’s Elena’s business, not mine,” said Caroline. “I just organize the parties.” She finished her glass, then stood up. “Speaking of… I’ve got work to do.”

She walked out, heels click-clacking over the wooden floor. Elijah stayed where he was. Then he reached over, picked up the empty glass, and went over to the sink to wash it.

*

He spent the rest of the day in solitude. In the evening, the doorbell rang. Elijah almost didn’t answer. He wasn’t allowed to receive visitors. He had to remind himself that there were new rules, that none of his vampire guards were here to take care of things. So he pressed the buzzer to let his visitor in, and opened the door to find a young man standing there with a bottle of wine and a hopeful expression. Elijah took one look at him and guessed immediately that he was Caroline’s “date”.

The hopeful expression faded.

“Um,” said the young man. “Is Caroline in? I could, uh, come back later.”

“No need,” said Elijah smoothly. “Please, come in.”

He ushered the young man in, took the bottle of wine which was cheap and nasty, and poured its contents down the sink.

“Now,” said Elijah, compelling his guest who stared open-mouthed, “let’s fill this with something a little more palatable, shall we?”

Elena and Caroline arrived home just as he was placing the wine bottle in the fridge.

“Neat,” said Caroline, when she realized what he’d done, “but I want mine fresh from the vein.”

She pulled their guest away, leaving Elena and Elijah looking at each other.

“Coming to join us?” Elena asked.

“Is that an order?”

She smirked.

Later, when the young man lay unconscious on the couch – but not dead, both Elena and Caroline were careful about that – they finished the contents of the bottle and moved on to alcoholic beverages instead. Elena twisted Caroline’s hair into braids. She was perched in an armchair, while Caroline sat cross-legged on the floor.

Elijah settled himself comfortably on the empty corner of the couch. “Caroline told me how you came to leave Mystic Falls.”

Elena looked up. “Didn’t I tell you that already?”

She had told him stories of her friends’ deaths. “Not every detail.”

“I gave him the basics,” said Caroline. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, not at all,” said Elena. “I thought it might help Elijah to hear how so many of our friends brutally died as a result of his family’s presence in our town. Did you tell him about Matt? I don’t think he heard that one.”

He frowned. “Matt?”

“Matt Donovan,” said Caroline serenely. She was painting her nails. “Ex-boyfriend to both of us. He turned the Lockwood mansion into a refuge for the council and anyone else who wanted to hide out from vampires.”

“Dumb move,” said Elena. “Caroline had already been invited in. So when we hunted down the council, all she had to do was go inside and force Matt to invite me in too.”

“‘Not you too, Care!’” Caroline imitated Matt’s reaction, holding up her hands. 

“I take it you killed him,” said Elijah.

“We did it together,” said Elena, “and then we burned down the house along with everyone in it.” She finished the last braid. “Kenny’s is open. Shall we make a move?”

*

It became a habit. Partying. Elena and Caroline had fully adopted the hedonistic lifestyle. Caroline claimed to be attending the local community college, but he saw no evidence of it. They went out most nights and sometimes Elijah accompanied them, but both girls remained cagey about their daytime activities.

It was easy to go along with them. He had promised to do as Elena told him. For perhaps the first time in his life, he had no responsibilities. He asked no questions.

He read a vampire book that Caroline lent him, a worn paperback that she must have thumbed through several times, and wondered distantly why none of the characters felt remotely connected to his own life. Outside, the world went on its way without him. He dipped in and out of it.

The sun set. Elijah turned his head, away from the last pale rays that found their way through the window, and lay the book down on his pillow as he looked at the bedside table next to him.

He kept the urn that contained Rebekah’s ashes and a few other small items – a sketch of Klaus’s, Kol’s ring – in one of the drawers. It was unlocked. He had left it unopened, knowing that he could go back to it at any time.

Downstairs, a distant bang and whoop told him that Caroline had arrived home – and she had company once again. Elijah remained quiet. No point in disturbing them. What was it Rebekah used to do? She would sneak off with her lovers – Elijah disapproved, of course – but Klaus was the one who would throw a jealous fit. More than once he had to stop Klaus from killing them. He didn’t always succeed.

Another door slam, a scuffling sound – this time much closer. Well, if they were going to be noisy, maybe he would go elsewhere…

“Help!”

The cry was faint and weak. A human being would not have heard it, but Elijah did, and he responded without thinking. He moved in a flash, rushing from his room to Caroline’s, throwing open the door–

Caroline collapsed against the floorboards. A man stooped over her, his throat bloody. He had a rucksack, and from it he pulled out a stake. Both looked up, Caroline with a small gulp of relief, the man in shock.

Elijah rushed him, knocking the stake out of the man’s hand, and pinned him against Caroline’s dresser.

“What, did you think she was all alone?” Elijah asked softly.

The man shuddered. He was still bleeding from the neck; Elijah could see the bite marks that Caroline had inflicted. But his eyes were defiant.

“Who are you?” Elijah asked.

No response.

Elijah sucked in an irritated breath. Well, if they had to play this game… He brought one hand up to the man’s neck, the injured side – and dug his fingers into the bite wounds.

The man screamed. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head. Elijah stopped before he could black out. Gingerly, he tasted the blood on the tip of his finger, and wrinkled his nose.

“Vervain and a stake,” he said lightly. “So you came prepared. Who are you?”

“A vampire hunter,” the man rasped.

“Evidently.” Behind him, he could hear Caroline beginning to stir just a little. The vervain in the man’s blood wasn’t potent. It was enough to keep a vampire down just long enough to kill them. A favourite hunter’s tactic. “Who do you work for?”

“No one.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“A monster,” the man spat.

He smiled. “I’m Elijah.”

He waited the second it took for that pronouncement to sink in, for the whites to show around the hunter’s eyes. Then he yanked the man’s head back with a fistful of his hair, twisted, and pulled the head clean off. Blood spurted from the severed neck as the body collapsed; Elijah stepped aside to avoid it, the head swinging from his hand.

His eyes met Caroline’s.

“You got blood _everywhere_ ,” she said.

“Yes,” said Elijah, looking around, though he wasn’t really sorry. He hadn’t felt so alive in months. “That was a little messy. I’ll clean up,” he offered, stepping forward. He held out his other hand to her, the one that wasn’t holding a severed head. “Can you stand?”

She nodded, and he helped her to her feet. “Thanks. I’m gonna go wash the taste of vervain out of my mouth.”

She passed her hand over her eyes, wobbling a little, and for a moment he was concerned, but she shook her head and walked out of the room just fine. She would recover quickly. By far the longer job was taking care of the body and cleaning the room. Elijah assessed his handiwork. Dead body, severed head, blood all over the floor. Streaks of blood on the dresser, including on the mirror. A few flecks of blood had even found their way on to the bed.

Seeing that, he decided that he might as well use the sheet to wrap up the body. So he did, pulling off the covers. Then his shoe hit something next to the dead man’s rucksack, something under the bed. Elijah frowned, crouching down. There was a box under there. He pulled it out, in case it had blood on it too, but it didn’t seem to.

He paused. It was more of a case than a box. He could see a thin slip of card sticking out from a corner. A photograph. Elijah slid it out of the case and held it up between thumb and forefinger.

It was a picture of Caroline, Elena and Bonnie in their cheerleading outfits. Smiling into the camera. They looked so young.

Elijah swallowed. He replaced the photograph quickly, opening the box to do so. He was unsurprised to find other photographs in there, and what looked like a yearbook. He closed the box just as quickly, pushing it back under the bed. This was Caroline’s, and obviously private.

Did Elena have something like that? No – she had burned down her house. In all likelihood, she didn’t. Caroline kept her humanity close. Elena pushed it away.

He wasn’t exactly in a position to help either of them.

Elijah sighed, putting the photographs out of his mind. The adrenaline rush had faded. He needed to clean up.

*

He had disposed of the body by the time Elena returned. She brought back a fresh human victim for them to share and another newbie vampire for him to compel. This time it was a well-dressed woman of around thirty five or forty, a woman whose handsome face niggled at him because he was sure that he had seen her before, but when Elena introduced her as Emily, he was none the wiser. He compelled her as instructed, and then hesitated, frowning.

“What are you going to do for us, Emily?”

Emily glanced over at Elena uncertainly.

“She’ll find out later,” said Elena. “Go back to Lucia.”

He watched the woman get up and leave. Meanwhile, Elena was watching him.

“You saved Caroline’s life tonight,” she said. “It’s good to know that you have our backs.”

“I’m glad I can be of use.”

Elena folded her arms. “Is that a promise?”

It had been an off-the-cuff remark, but she seemed to take him at his word. Over the next week, she brought in four more vampires to join their cause. He looked for a pattern, a connection of some kind, but the only thing the newbie vampires seemed to have in common was that they were all rich. Their jewellery, the cut of their clothes, their hair and teeth – all pointed to a wealthy lifestyle.

When he had dismissed the last one, an earnest-looking young man called David, Elijah stopped Elena from leaving.

“Wait.”

She paused, turning back. “What?”

“I’d like to talk.”

Elena raised an eyebrow. She walked back and sat down on the couch next to him. “Spill.”

“How long am I going to be kept in the dark?”

“Like I said,” Elena replied. “Until I know you’re ready.”

“How can you know that?”

“Trust me. I’ll know.”

She stated it like a fact, plainly and simply. That was one thing about her that hadn’t changed even after she’d abandoned her humanity: Elena Gilbert was still extremely perceptive. He even believed her.

Elijah leaned back on the couch. “You’ve come a long way from Mystic Falls. The town of your birth, and yet you destroyed it. Why?”

Elena blinked at him. “Only the council. Maybe a few other people who got in our way. As for why? Revenge.”

“I understand revenge,” said Elijah. “Revenge comes from anger. Grief. Pain. Those are emotions, Elena. It means you care.”

“When the world burns, you have to be the one burning it.” She shrugged. “That way it hurts less.”

 _New Orleans_ , he thought. An entire city, burning. The joy of it eclipsing the pain, if only temporarily. Elena watched him for a moment, blank-faced, then seemed to decide that their short conversation was at an end. Standing up, she walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

He felt cold. Deep in his bones. There was no pleasure in death, but there was pleasure in killing. None in being hunted, but in hunting. He stared down, unmoving, at his hands. It was what he was made for. To be faster, stronger, better. Not to hide, but to tear down. To spill blood. That was when he felt most truly alive.

Elijah closed his eyes.

*

He started watching the news again. Elena and Caroline turned it on for breakfast every morning and sometimes in the evenings as well.

Elena blew on her coffee while Elijah frowned at the news anchor who was ranting about vampire sympathizers, bleeding-heart liberals, and spies in the government all in the same breath.

“Gotta love Fox News,” Elena murmured. “They’ve finally got an evil conspiracy to report that’s true. Speaking of…” She picked up her cell phone. “Dario’s dead. I got the message late last night.”

He blinked. “Shouldn’t we be moving on?”

One vampire hunter had almost killed Caroline. Now another had gotten to Dario. The hunters were closing in. They had to be. They had spent over a month in this town already, and this was around the time that Lucia usually told him to pack his suitcase. Why were they still here?

“Not yet,” said Elena. She was checking her messages. “He was somewhere else when it happened. Morning, Caroline.”

Elijah glanced up as Caroline walked into the kitchen and thrust a gold and black card into his hand.

“What’s this?”

“Tickets!” said Caroline triumphantly. “We’re doing a classic Prohibition-era cocktail party. It’s going to be a blast.”

He stared at the ticket. “Did you organize this?”

“Duh. You have to come in costume, by the way. The Roaring Twenties. I expect a hat.”

“You’re serious.”

He looked at Elena, but she was busy writing a text on her phone, ignoring them both.

Caroline folded her arms. “Do I look like I’m not serious? Think _The Great Gatsby_. Handsome millionaires, flappers, Elena as Daisy Buchanan…”

Speakeasies, jazz, and fine women. Kol would have loved it.

He frowned. “And what about you?”

“I’m your friendly hostess.”

“It’ll be fun,” said Elena, looking up. “You should go, Elijah. That’s an order.”

Well, when she put it like that…


	6. A New Brand of Vampire

_Dear Diary,_

_Wow, my last entry sounds angry. I guess I was in a really bad mood when I wrote that. Maybe I should try writing this stuff when I’m less emotional. Get a little more perspective._

_The thing about Dan is, he gets worried and overprotective. He’s like me really. I have alarm bells going off in my head whenever I see Louis toddling a couple of yards closer to the front door. So I can understand where he’s coming from. We came to a compromise. I’ll ask him first about going out. That way he has peace of mind because he knows where I am, and he can call me to check that I’m okay._

_I read an article in the newspaper today about vampire activity in Honolulu. That’s not far from us. Suddenly it makes a lot more sense that Dan brought it up. He didn’t mention the story and I don’t think he wanted me to know since he threw out the newspaper, but I saw it when I emptied the trash. I guess he didn’t want me to worry. Well, I am worried. How did they even make it past airport security?_

_I’m staying in. No more trips for me._

 

**6\. A New Brand of Vampire**

A chauffeur drove him to the venue, the fanciest hotel in town. Which wasn’t saying a great deal: it was hardly a five star resort. It had palm trees and a faux Greek-style portico. Elijah walked in to the foyer, his shoes squeaking on the polished marble floor. An equally polished black telephone gleamed on the reception desk counter; it had an old-fashioned rotary dial and looked more decorative than functional.

The receptionist, a woman with shiny bobbed hair, greeted him. “Mr Smith, welcome. That’s room 501 booked for one night, and, oh, the party is just this way, sir. Through the double doors on the right, then straight ahead, follow the signs for the Montague Suite.”

“Thank you,” Elijah said.

A young couple were already walking that way. He followed them, adjusting his pace so that his footsteps made no sound at all, but before he caught up with them the frosted glass doors that led into the suite opened and Caroline stepped through.

“Welcome!” she said to the couple. “Yeah, it’s this way… Have fun.” Then she looked at Elijah, putting one hand on her hip. “You’re late.”

Elena had given him a pocket watch to complete his period costume. He squinted at it. “My apologies.”

“Whatever,” said Caroline. “This way.”

She turned around and Elijah followed: she wore a bright sequinned dress and a gold headband that was easy to track as she navigated the crowd. They passed through the glass doors and into a lounge area where the guests could hang up their coats before joining the party. The panelled walls were made of dark mahogany, the carpet was a rich wine red, and a few guests milled around the cloakroom or seated themselves on plush armchairs.

Caroline tugged at his arm. “I can’t believe we almost lost you. I _told_ Elena she should have gone with you.”

He blinked. “Why didn’t she?”

“I think she wanted to make an impression.”

She gave him a look as she said that, raising an eyebrow, but Elijah simply adjusted the cuffs of his dinner jacket, not taking the bait. They moved down a corridor and into a second, much larger room. Here there was a bar, and two sets of stairs leading down to what looked like a ballroom, except that the floor was occupied by several round tables. At the back of the room, patio doors opened into the night air and the sound of a bubbling fountain drifted in from the garden.

Waiters were already laying the tables with white cloths and silver cutlery, while on the upper level they carried trays bearing cocktails. Elijah took one, then stopped to scrutinize the crowd more closely. At the bar, he spotted Lucia wearing a feather boa, talking and laughing with other guests he did not recognize. She caught his eyes and smiled, raising her glass. Elijah did the same.

Meanwhile, Caroline was also looking around, hands on her hips. “Where is she…?”

“Are we in a hurry?” Elijah asked.

“Yes, we’ve got ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes until what?”

She huffed. “It’s a surprise, okay. Let’s just say… this whole vampire hunt thing. Major bad PR. Everyone thinks we’re the bad guys.”

“Aren’t we?”

“Yeah. But Lucia thinks we can change that perception.” She paused. “Okay, don’t say I told you that.”

He nodded, intrigued. Caroline still looked anxious, biting her lip. She needn’t have worried, however, for a moment later they were approached by a young lady in a red dress.

“Look who’s dashing,” Elena greeted him.

He had gone for a pinstriped suit with a waistcoat underneath, nothing particularly ostentatious. He had neglected to wear a hat. Elena, on the other hand, certainly stood out from the crowd. Her hair was curled into a loose bun and her red lipstick matched the exact shade of her dress. She looked stunning.

“Miss Gilbert.” He lifted her hand to kiss it.

Elena smiled. “Mr Smith.”

“Okay, good,” said Caroline, who seemed to have a mental checklist she was ticking off. Elijah half-expected her to pull out a clipboard. “That’s everyone. Can we move along to the demonstration room, please?”

A few other guests detached themselves from various groups and moved along too as Caroline ushered them towards a side room.

“Only guests with golden tickets, please!” she called. “Guests with golden tickets, please move along to the demonstration room.”

“That’s us too,” said Elena, laying a hand on his arm. Elijah eyed the other guests who were about to join them. Lucia was heading their way, accompanied by Julian, who appeared to have taken the whole theme of this night very seriously and dressed as a gangster. There were others he knew too: Lorenzo, Cerise, Sarah, Blake, Jacob; all the vampires who had been his guards for the past six months were present, with the exception of the recently deceased Dario.

They followed the trickle of guests into what Caroline had called the demonstration room. It was, in essence, a theatre. A large screen dominated the front of the room. In front of it was a podium with a microphone, and seating for an audience of around twenty or thirty. He saw Lucia in the third row next to Julian, and made a beeline for her.

Lucia leaned over to him, fluffing up her hair. “Glad you could join us.”

Elijah settled back into his seat. “So what’s the show?”

“This is how we take over the world,” Lucia replied, enigmatically.

Elena had taken the end seat next to him. “He’s been asking a lot of questions,” she said. “I think he’s ready for some answers.”

The room had filled up. They were almost all vampires, Elijah could discern that, except for two people in the front row. It was Caroline, however, who stepped up to the podium first. She had implied that she had nothing to do with any plans for stopping Katherine. It seemed that was not the case.

“Welcome!” Caroline said, pulling up the microphone to her height. She looked every inch the glamorous hostess; her dress flashed gold and silver every time she moved. “Thank you all for joining us tonight. I know this is a little flashy, but trust me, although the entertainment is good, what you’re about to see is better.” She took a breath. “Last month, Katherine issued an ultimatum. She told Elijah, the Original, the maker of all our bloodlines, to give himself up. To die. And when he refused to do so, she told all the news networks and the media that he had declared war on humanity. She created an atmosphere of paranoia and fear. We’ve been thinking of a way to combat that, and the person I’m about to introduce you to is going to help us do it. Please give a warm welcome to Ms Tamara Chiu!”

Caroline stepped aside, and started the applause for Ms Chiu, who was one of the two people he had identified in the front row as probably human. She was young, perhaps in her late twenties, slight, and she tottered up to the podium with a slightly nervous stumble over her high heels. The other person in the front row, he now saw, was carrying a laptop. The tech guy, Elijah guessed. He pressed a button and the screen in front of them lit up, displaying a company logo.

“Hello!” Tamara greeted them with a pearly smile. “Thank you, Caroline, for that introduction. My name is Tamara Chiu and I represent the PR company, Rosewood Media. I guess it’s an understatement to say that right now vampires have a bit of an image problem.” She paused. There were a few titters from the audience. “You know, for companies, image is everything. My firm helps companies to put out a positive image for the world. We’ve been asked to do the same for all of you.”

The screen changed, this time showing an image of Katherine. Elijah felt his stomach drop, as it always did when he saw her. The reaction in the room was instantaneous: shoulders tensing, low murmurs, hisses.

Tamara continued. “For the past year, Katherine has dominated the headlines. She has dictated the story here, the narrative around vampires. Not only has she convinced the entire world that vampires are evil and should be eradicated, she has also become the face of humanity. She’s a rallying point. Humanity’s story.

“Removing Katherine won’t solve the problem. She’ll become a martyr and she’ll be even more celebrated in death than she was in life. The image of Katherine will live on. Stopping Katherine is one thing. But to change the image of vampires in wider society, to stop this vampire hunt – that’s something else entirely. Right now, vampires are a faceless enemy. There’s no story, no one for people to relate to – just a void. We are going to tell that story. Now I’d like to show you a short video that will launch our campaign.”

Tamara stepped back and the screen went dark. Elijah glanced at Elena, raising his eyebrows. She gave a small shrug.

The video played. Faces appeared on the screen – faces he recognized.

“I’m Simon.”

“I’m Emily.”

“I’m Li.”

All the newbie vampires they had turned and compelled to obey them. They were all here, in this room; he glanced sideways at Emily, then Li next to her, and Simon in the row in front, just a teenager.

“I’m David.”

The last face. Unassuming, gentle, normal. David in particular looked open and friendly, with wide expressive eyes. An honest face.

“I’m a vampire,” said Simon.

“I’m a vampire,” said Emily.

One by one, they all said it. A soft, lilting melody played in the background. No snarls, no fangs, no veins beneath the eyes. Only the frank admission from each person in turn.

“I’m a vampire.”

Finally, the film ended with a strapline: _Vampires are people._

The screen faded to black. For a moment there was silence in the theatre. Tamara glanced around anxiously – though he and the other vampires could see perfectly well in the dark, she would not be able to see them. But as the lights turned back on, the audience broke into applause. Elijah joined in, this time turning to catch Lucia’s eye.

“Was this your idea?”

Lucia smiled. “I hired the PR company. I told them what we wanted, and this is the result.”

“Thank you,” said Tamara, stepping onto the podium again as the applause faded. “Vampires are people – that’s our key concept for this campaign. We have a website ready to launch, a Facebook page, Twitter and YouTube account. We’re going to hand out flyers, host awareness raising events, and generate press in the United States and beyond. We’ve even got a “Vampires are people” T-shirt so that people all around the world can show their support.

“We’re going to offer support to families who have a vampire living with them. All the stories we’re not hearing – stories of acceptance and love, of vampires co-existing peacefully in society – those are the stories we’re going to tell, starting with the six people starring in our video, who are all here tonight…”

She went on to introduce each of them. He understood now: they had all been carefully chosen to present the best image of vampirism to humanity. They varied in age, ethnicity and background, but all looked respectable, well-spoken, well-educated.

“And some of them are famous,” Elena added, whispering to him. “Emily is a daytime TV presenter. Obviously she had to give up that job, but she can do interviews. Simon’s father is a politician, one of the guys who has spoken out against vampires. Watch him change his tune. Oh, and that lady over there is a journalist. Writes opinion pieces. She is going to get us into the New York Times, and other respected publications.”

“You have been busy,” Elijah murmured back.

“Well, I can’t take the credit,” said Elena. “Lucia dreamed it all up and Caroline did most of the legwork.”

“Even so,” he said. “It seems you don’t need me after all.”

“You compelled them, remember.”

She fell silent as the lights switched back on and the crowd began leaving their seats. Elijah too rose from his seat, joining the throng as they filed out. A low murmur filled the room. The vampires were already beginning to discuss what they had just seen. Elena beckoned him with a smile. Elijah trailed after her, lost in thought. 

_Vampires are people._

Were they?

*

More drinks. Celebrations. Smiles. The twenties theme had begun in earnest: a jazz band played in the ballroom, the lighting was soft and moody, and the place was crowded with men in suits and fedoras, and ladies dressed as flappers, wearing short fringed dresses and beaded necklaces.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” said Julian. “Very… glittery.”

They were by the bar. Downstairs in the ballroom, cocktails and canapés had already been served. Their human guests were just starting their main meals, while the vampires gradually moved down to join them. The humans were there, of course, to provide dessert.

Elijah took a sip of his mint julep. “Your sister’s work, I hear.”

Julian leaned back against the bar, elbows on the counter. “Yes. This stuff is not my area.”

“So what have you been up to?”

“Waging war,” said Julian grimly. “You heard about Dario? He got jumped by a hunter in Boston. He was supposed to be following a Katherine lead, but she’s too well-protected.”

Elijah frowned. “Was he killed by one of Katherine’s allies?”

“We don’t know.”

“And if he was, what if this hunter interrogated him before he killed him? Dario knew my location. That’s not to mention the hunter who almost killed Caroline.”

Julian paused. “Dario wouldn’t have given us up. He was loyal. But you’re right, we’ve had a few too close encounters lately. We’ll move out after the party.”

Elijah nodded. He finished his drink and put the empty glass down on the counter, but before he could move on Julian stopped him with a hand on his arm. The other vampire fixed Elijah with an intense look, brows shadowing eyes as blue as his sister’s.

“I just want to say… I’m glad you’re concerned. For a long time there, you weren’t. It looks like Elena did a good job with you.”

“She hasn’t deemed me ready yet,” said Elijah.

The ringing of silver on glass echoed through the room. Both men looked up. Caroline, their golden hostess, was calling for their attention.

“Ah,” said Julian. “Dessert.”

*

Later on, when most of the guests had dispersed and the hotel staff had begun to clean up the blood, Elena came over to Elijah at the bar.

“I’m impressed,” she said. “You didn’t get even one drop of blood on your shirt.”

“Well, I’ve had centuries of practice. And I hate dry-cleaning.”

He’d seen her tearing into their dinner guests, the blood dripping from her mouth. She fed with the appearance of abandon that disguised controlled poise, moving from victim to victim with an almost bored expression. Her dress was stained, but not very much.

“So what did you think of the party?” she asked.

He considered. “You certainly succeeded in distracting me.”

“Oh, please. We didn’t do this to distract you. Caroline and I wanted to have fun.”

“Yes,” he said, glancing over at Caroline who was talking with Tamara and Lucia. “I thanked her a moment ago. She knows how to throw a party.”

Caroline was absolutely glowing with all the praise she’d received. It was enough to make him think she hadn’t really turned off her emotions after all.

Elena shrugged. “She just likes telling people what to do.”

“Well, did you have fun?”

She nodded. “It was okay. But I’m not sure I’m ready to call it a night yet.”

“No? Would you like another drink?” He caught the eye of the bartender, but Elena shook her head.

“I was thinking.” She sidled a little closer. “We have all night. Why don’t we use it?”

There was a glint in her eyes. And underneath that, perhaps, there was Elena Gilbert, getting what she wanted.

He gave her a suspicious look. “You’re bored.”

Her expression was blandly innocent. “Maybe this time I’d like you to distract me.”

“Haven’t we had this conversation before?”

Elena shrugged graceful shoulders. She turned away and for a moment Elijah thought she had been teasing him. He stared after her, watched her slip away from him with every step, felt it almost like a rope stretching between them.

Then she glanced back. “Coming?”

*

He shouldn’t do this. Elena was still without her humanity. Whatever she wanted from him, it didn’t mean anything to her. She didn’t care.

Yet here they were, in his hotel room. He avoided looking at her, instead walking over to the window where he had a charming view of the palm trees outside. But he could make out her reflection in the glass.

Elena approached behind him, folding her arms. “Cold feet?”

He shook his head. “No, I… I need time to consider.”

“Consider what?”

He drew the curtain shut, turning to face her. She looked less perfectly made up by this point. Some of her lipstick had come off and she had removed her heels as she entered the room, so that she was barefoot. Loose strands of hair framed her cheeks. He took in a breath.

“Everything I’ve just learned.”

“What, so you can give it your vote of approval?”

“I thought you wanted me to take an interest.”

“I do. But right now, not in that. There are other things to be interested in.”

She moved forward, making her meaning clear as she traced her hand lightly over the contours of his suit jacket. He swallowed.

Elena met his eyes when he didn’t respond. “What?”

He took her hand, moving it back down to her side. “I don’t want another distraction. These past few weeks… Being in your company has worked, Elena. I haven’t spent every moment thinking of my family, dwelling on past regrets. But that’s not enough. What I’ve done isn’t living, it’s passing the time.”

“Passing the time until you’re ready to do more.” Elena’s voice was soft, imploring. “That’s why I brought you here tonight. There’s so much to be done.”

“I see that,” he said. “It’s a clever idea. It might even work.”

She raised her eyebrows. “But?”

“My mother once said to me…”

Elena sighed, rolling her eyes. “We’re going to talk about your mommy issues?” She turned away from him, moving to sit down on the bed with a huff. Elijah stayed where he was, aware that he had killed the mood.

“Elena,” he said, “you understand the desire to please your parents, don’t you? Centuries go by and so many things change, but the relationship between a parent and a child does not. I was the eldest son. It was my responsibility to… to protect my siblings and the family name.”

She looked at him. “You feel guilty.”

“For a thousand years, I believed in the values my family stood for. Loyalty. Duty. Truth. Honour.”

“You still believe in all that, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“My mother hated us. She called us a curse on this earth. For all my talk of honour, she thought me no better than the rest.”

“Well, that must have been a blow to your ego.”

He glared at her. “I spent my life protecting my family only to be told by my own mother that we were all monsters who deserved to die. Everything I lived for… Worthless.”

Elena shook her head. “You don’t believe that.”

He could hear the watch tucked inside the pocket of his waistcoat ticking away the seconds. Outside was dark; it was well after midnight. Perhaps some of the vampires had gone out to feed again. Perhaps they would compel the whole world if they had to, as he had done with the newbie vampires, as they had all done at this party tonight. Marketing was only a more subtle form of mind control, after all; it worked to the same end.

They could spend their days convincing humanity that vampires were people too, and their nights wreaking whatever havoc they pleased. The ideal solution. How his mother would despise him.

Elena stood up, smoothing her dress as she did so. Her eyes narrowed.

“Is this going back to those dead children?” she asked. “Because let’s be honest, Elijah, you didn’t actually care about that. You spent all of five minutes being self-righteous about it, and then you moved on.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Elijah. “Maybe that’s exactly why none of this should happen.”

She stepped towards him. “You know what the solution is? Not to care. There is a line between people who matter and people who don’t. It’s easy to draw. The vampires in your bloodline, we’re your people. We want you to care about us like we care about you, like family. Everyone else…” She shrugged. “They’re lunch.”

He lifted his eyes to her. “You make it sound so simple.”

“You’re a vampire. More than that, you’re the Original vampire. Embrace it.”

“Embrace the monster?”

“Embrace _us_ ,” said Elena. “I’ll be loyal to you, Elijah. I’ll be honest. I’ll fight to protect you and I’ll kill anyone who opposes us. I just want you to do the same.”

Her hand was on his arm. He could feel the press of her fingers, light and gentle as her words.

“Elena…”

He made no conscious decision. He simply pulled her to him, roughly. Grabbed at her waist, fingers slipping on the sheer fabric. And Elena responded in kind: she raked her hands through his hair, grabbed at his neck, kissed him full on the mouth. Her lips tasted of gin and blood.

He shrugged off his jacket and she grabbed it from him, throwing it aside on the floor. Her bun had come loose. Her eyes were brilliantly dark as she laughed, showing her teeth, and he thought how beautiful she looked with blood on her mouth. Smudged red lips. Moonlit eyes.

Flashing lights. Sirens.

They were entwined, stumbling towards the bed, when he stopped.

Footsteps. Running.

Elena let out a breath, her mouth opening in surprise. “What–”

The door burst open.

“Freeze! Put your hands up! Now!”


	7. To Death

_Dear Diary,_

_Never let it be said that I can’t solve a problem. The problem? I’m bored and lonely. I love Louis, but I need someone to talk to. Dan isn’t enough._

_The solution? Invite people over. How I didn’t think of this before, I have no idea. Well, before, I didn’t really know anyone to invite except my parents-in-law and you can bet that’s not going to happen._

_So I have Julian’s number and I called him and he said yes to coming around. Just as friends, nothing else. I was clear about that. I know for a fact that Dan will get jealous if he finds out. But I only promised to ask him if I wanted to go out, not if anyone was coming to me, so technically I’m not doing anything wrong._

_Long story short, Julian visited today and the change was so refreshing. We talked for hours. I got really sentimental. Stupid really. It was an off-hand question from Julian – he asked if my parents lived here so then I told him they’d died and somehow we ended up talking about how much I wish they were here so that they could help me with Louis. Just be a family._

_The house we lived in got torched so I don’t have any pictures of them. I only have one thing left that belonged to my mom: a necklace. It’s old, I think it was passed down through the family, set with a dark blue stone, and very beautiful. But its value to me is sentimental._

_It sucks that this is all I have left of my family. I guess that’s why I cling to Louis so hard. He’s all I have left._

 

**7\. To Death**

Sirens blaring outside. Three black-clothed officers. A SWAT team, guns pointed at them – guns that no doubt contained wooden bullets.

“Hands up!”

Elijah was still holding Elena and he let go, instinctively starting forward to protect her – but Elena wouldn’t let him. She had both his wrists in a vice-like grip, and she held them behind her back, pretending to struggle.

“I can’t!” she gulped. “Help!”

The officers all wore helmets. He couldn’t see their faces. But they could see Elena, trembling, dishevelled, the strap of her dress slipping down her arm.

One of them spoke. “Katherine?”

“Please help me,” Elena whimpered. “He’s a vampire, I think he’s going to kill me…”

“Quiet!” Elijah snapped, catching on. He shook her hard enough to hurt her as a human, though Elena wouldn’t feel it. “Don’t move.”

“Let her go!” the SWAT guy barked. “Step away right now or we _will_ shoot.”

Elena glanced up at him. She had let go. He nudged her forward, then raised his hands. Instantly the officers trained their weapons on him. If they fired, he would have to be quick. But Elena was stumbling towards the team, one hand on her brow. She looked weak, almost ready to faint. One of the guys caught her, lowering his gun so that he could help her stay on her feet.

“You’re safe now,” he said. “We’ve got back-up. Stay behind me.”

Elijah waited, watching intently. They wouldn’t shoot while Elena was still in front of them.

“Okay.”

A wicked gleam shone in Elena’s eyes. She reached up – then broke the man’s neck. Bones snapped in an instant. And in that moment, she moved in a blur – the second man raised his gun – Elena snatched it from his hand and used it to deal a fatal blow to the head. He dropped at once. The third man yelped and there was a burst of gunfire – but Elijah had moved as soon as Elena did, dispatching him with a neck snap.

Elena threw the gun aside and stepped over the bodies.

Elijah raised an eyebrow. “Nicely done.”

“He said they had back-up,” she said. “We’d better go. Pretend I’m your hostage.”

Even as she spoke, a burst of gunfire shattered the bedroom window. The sirens screamed even more loudly. Not that way then. He could hear boots pounding up the stairs. The elevators would be no good either – they’d be trapped. Only one thing for it.

Elijah picked Elena up, wrapping an arm firmly around her waist. “Hold on.”

Out into the corridor. A second armed unit running towards them. More gunfire – he ducked – blurred towards the fire escape and there was an iron railing, a set of zigzag stairs. Elijah didn’t bother with the stairs. The night air whistled in his ears; the shouts of the police and the wailing of the sirens floated up from the ground. He jumped. Elena screamed, curling into a ball as she clung tightly to him. It was five storeys down. He was going to shatter at least one bone upon impact.

Down – he hit the ground with a sickening thud and let out an involuntary grunt of pain as his femur split in two. But he had made sure that Elena’s fall was blocked by his body and he rolled over, shielding her beneath him. He heard a muffled laugh. In the second it took for his body to repair itself he was already moving, disappearing through the shadows. The police lights had followed them all the way down and caught a glimpse of them as they hit the ground, but lost them after that.

“Freeze!” The sound boomed out of a microphone.

Lights trained on them again. Elijah hissed. He’d covered half the distance around the hotel building and they were still surrounded. This was no lone hunter. The vampire response units had really stepped up their game.

He pulled Elena roughly to him, angling his arm across her neck. “I wouldn’t,” Elijah called. “She’ll die first.”

For a second or two, there was no response. He looked around, searching for a gap, an escape route. But there were police cars at every turn, and they’d set up barriers as well; he could see the barrels of guns pointing at him from over the makeshift barricades. The searchlights flashing overhead came from two helicopters. The wind rose as they approached, Elena’s hair whipping into his face.

He hoped there were no cameras. If they got a shot of his face–

“She’s a vampire!” A female voice on the microphone. “Shoot them both!”

“Katherine!” Elena hissed, even as a hail of wooden bullets rained down on them again. He ran. They had reached the hotel parking lot – he ducked behind a van and took a moment to catch his breath.

Elena pressed herself flat against the side of the van, glancing over at the wing mirror. “She has the worst timing.”

“Where are the others?” Elijah panted. “Is anyone else still here?”

“I don’t know,” said Elena. “We all booked rooms. Caroline organized it–”

A different, whistling sound in the air alerted him. Something bigger than wooden bullets. He looked up.

“Run!”

The world exploded. For a moment he felt a terrible burning pain in his shoulder – but then he was gone and so was the pain – he alighted by one of the police cars where a young police officer cried out at the sight of him. A bullet tore into his shoulder. Elijah snarled and crushed the officer against his car, biting into his neck savagely. He tasted vervain and staggered back.

Flames melted the tarmac where he had crouched only seconds before. They had blown up the van. He looked around wildly for Elena, but could not see her. She must have fled the other way – unless she had been caught in the explosion.

“Elena!” he called hoarsely. “Elena!”

“There! Shoot, shoot!”

He turned, but not quickly enough. Bullets slammed into his chest and stomach. Pain ripped through him. He could not see his enemy – could not see her – only armed men in helmets, fire reflected in their visors. He clenched his fists and took several bloody steps forward. Back. Chest. Shoulder.

The final bullet hit straight between his eyes. The world went black.

*

“Hello, Elijah.”

His eyes flickered open. There was movement. The sound of an engine. A train? He remembered a train, a night journey, Elena leaning over to feed him blood from a plastic cup…

No. The dark eyes that watched him were not Elena’s. Her voice was lower, older.

“Katherine.”

He was in a cage, in the back of an armed van. Two guards slouched on the other side of the vehicle, guns resting in their laps. One of them lit a cigarette and he caught the scent of vervain. Katherine was seated in the middle of them, watching him. She was clad in black, her hair tied back in a ponytail, both practical and professional. He could easily believe that she was working with the feds. Katherine the government spy. How novel.

She leaned forward. “Looks like I caught you fair and square, hmm?”

He couldn’t reply.

“By the way, I saw you with my vampire doppelgänger. You’ll be glad to know, Elena’s dead. We staked every vampire we found at that hotel. There were quite a few.”

He closed his eyes. Elena. Lucia, Julian. All the vampires who had stuck by him, even through his worst days, when he had lost the will to live. Had Katherine really killed them all?

The van bumped over an uneven section of the road. Elijah gathered himself, sitting up. He leaned forward to grip one of the iron bars that trapped him, and a fresh wave of vervain-filled air swept over him, poisoning his lungs, weakening his muscles. He coughed and sat back.

“Why are you doing this?”

She looked surprised. “I’m doing this for you, Elijah. Putting you out of your misery. Isn’t that what you wanted?” She watched him, realization dawning. “Oh. It isn’t. Something’s changed. You’ve found something to live for?” She cocked her head. “Or you just don’t want to lose.”

“This isn’t only about us. My family – everyone you killed–”

She interrupted him. “Oh, it’s exactly about us. An eye for an eye. You know, being human again brought back a lot of memories. There was a time when I was young and innocent, ignorant of so many evils in the world. Your family destroyed that. You destroyed me. Did you want to meet your precious Katerina again?” Bitterness filled her voice. “Well, this is me. Katerina Petrova. I loved you. I could have loved you again. But you could never love me, could you?”

“This is what you choose to do with your humanity,” said Elijah. “No. I could not love you, Katerina.”

“This is the most human thing I could do,” Katherine breathed. “I’ll admit, it’s personal, but like the papers say, it’s for the greater good. No more vampires. Call it my gift to the world.”

“You’re delusional.”

“I’m really not.” She shuffled forward a little more. He glanced at her hand, which was closest to him. If he could grab her through the bars… “I take no joy in doing this, Elijah. Not in killing you. You saw something in me that others wouldn’t. You believed I could be better. And I am. That’s why I’m doing this.”

“Is it?” he said. “It has nothing to with the fact that you’re no longer immortal and you can’t stand that, so you don’t want anyone else to have it either.”

“Well,” she said. “Revenge feels good too.”

She was just close enough. He moved like a snake uncoiling to strike, slamming against the bars as his hand shot out to grab Katherine’s arm and pull her towards him, crushing her wrist. “I know the feeling.”

She gasped, cried out. Her head hit the iron bars. But before he could wring her frail little neck, a spray of liquid vervain caught him right in the face, eating into his flesh like acid. He reeled back with a cry, clutching his head with both hands. Katherine had already scrambled away.

“Bite me if you can, Elijah,” she said. “It won’t do you any good.”

Next to her, an armed guard stooped down with a pepper spray can ready. It was he who had used the vervain.

Katherine nodded. “Stake him.”

*

“Okay,” said Sophie. “It’s time. All we need is your blood.”

“I want to talk to him,” said Katherine. “This is personal.”

He heard the women’s voices faintly, as if filtered through heavy cloth. There was a dull throbbing in his head. The world was dark.

“What about you guys?” Katherine asked. “Are you ready?”

Sophie’s voice was firm. “Everyone’s here.”

He was slowly coming to his senses. Eyes opened, blinking. They were not in the crypt, as he had expected. He had a feeling of space, height, open but enclosed. A church, perhaps, or an abandoned warehouse. He couldn’t move. He was chained by his hands and feet, and with stakes driven into the palms of his hands pinning him into a wooden hangman. A third stake had been driven into his heart. His head lolled; his skin held a grey pallor. Any other vampire would be dead.

But not Elijah. Even as Katherine approached, his muscles twitched and he slowly raised his head, eyes focusing on the girl in black.

They were in a church. The pews were blackened and burnt out, the floorboards scorched, and the stained glass windows smashed. But the stone survived. Behind Katherine, Sophie watched him with narrowed eyes, a silver pentacle dangling proudly from her neck.

“We dosed him with our strongest shot of vervain,” Sophie said. “But be careful. Even like this, he’s still dangerous.”

Katherine came to a stop in front of him. The witches were arranged in a half-circle behind. She pursed her lips at the sight of the stake sticking out from his chest, then climbed one step and leaned up, yanking it out. Elijah let out a breath and stared at her, the colour returning to his face, as Katherine twirled the stake between her fingers. She looked different.

“Hello there.”

He gasped something incoherent, the air hissing from his lungs.

She shook her head, tapping a finger to her mouth. “Don’t speak. I’m doing the talking. I wanted you to see me, Elijah. See all of us–” she waved a hand in the direction of the witches – “before you die and vampires become extinct forever. All you have to do is drink my blood.”

She held out her arm, palm facing upwards, and rolled up her sleeve. Then she drew out a knife and cut into the delicate veins on her wrist. Blood welled up. She wasted no time. Leaning up, she shoved her wrist against Elijah’s mouth, forcing him to drink.

His eyes widened. It was her. Somehow, impossibly, it was her. If he hadn’t realized it before, the taste of her blood gave the game away. His face remained human, his teeth blunt, and a calm aura settled over his features as his gaze met hers. He sucked the blood away from her wound before it could close up, and felt Elena catch her breath. She swallowed, closing her eyes.

The temptation to bite was strong. But he remained passive, and Elena’s eyes fluttered open again. She stepped away, cradling her wrist to her chest so that the witches wouldn’t see that it had healed already. Elijah breathed deeply, lips parted, his mouth bloody.

“Form a circle!” Sophie called. “Quickly!”

The witches had already started chanting. A sense of _déjà vu_ swept over him.

Sophie stepped towards him, holding a stake in both hands. “The blood that made you will also undo you.” Her lips were colourless. She intoned his doom like a prayer. “To the sun, you forfeit your power. To nature, you forfeit your hunger. To death, you forfeit your life.”

“To death,” said Elena. And smiling, she snapped Sophie’s neck.

*

“He is a wolf,” said Esther. “Promise me that you will look after him, won’t you, Elijah? And Rebekah too, she dotes on him so, but I fear what he might do…”

“He will learn to control it,” said Elijah. “We’ll all help.”

“But how long will it take? You have all killed.”

She had refused to invite Niklaus into their home. As a show of solidarity, Elijah and Rebekah had slept outside with their brother, but he had returned to plead on Niklaus’s behalf. His mother fixed him with steady eyes.

Elijah swallowed. “It is… difficult. I don’t know how to describe it. But I feel the hunger quietening, Mother, I swear. We all do.”

She turned away. “Truthfully, Elijah, I fear for my life.”

A little pain blossomed in his heart. “Mother… We would never hurt you.”

His mother took down a jewellery box from a shelf, but the precious stones it contained were not adornments. They were tools of her craft. She held up a moonstone, the light from the window shining into translucent pink.

“There may be something I can do to help. But it must be done before Mikael returns.”

Elijah nodded. “What can I do?”

Esther smiled. “My dear Elijah. You always were a good son.”

*

The rest was death.

Elena ripped away the chains that tied him to the hangman, and together they tore the witches apart.

He saw a flash of blonde – and another – Caroline and Lucia had joined them. Lucia grinned, imp-like, as she and Caroline took down a witch together. Julian moved in an explosion of dark fury, cutting off any escape.

As for Elijah, he felt the magic in the air grappling, choking him, the last feeble attempts of the witches to take him down. But their power could not match him. He finished off the slaughter, ripping out the heart of the last standing witch. He held the bloody organ in hand, inhaling the scent of blood, of death, of triumph.

This was what he was made for.

Twelve dead witches. A full coven. Their bodies lay scattered around the church. He dropped the heart to the floor and looked around, searching for the witch who had started it all.

Sophie.

There she was, right before the altar, her body small and broken. Elijah stooped down beside her and closed her eyes. Even in death, her face still wore a stubborn frown. She had killed Hayley – and in doing so had murdered Hayley’s unborn child, Klaus’s child, the child that would have been the first addition to the Original family for a thousand years.

But that family was gone. Those who didn’t have a family made their own.

And so the vampires crowded around him – Julian patted him on the back before being pulled into a hug by his sister, Caroline smiled proudly, and Elena simply stood there, a little apart from the rest, observing it all.

“How did you…?” he asked.

She pointed to his waistcoat. “Your pocket watch. It’s a tracker. We used it to follow you.”

It took a moment, but he caught on. Elijah shook his head. “You knew they were on to us. You planned this.”

The hunters, the party. The ambush at the hotel. Everything. She had known it was coming all along.

Elena shrugged, flicking her hair back. “We made sure we were ready.”

“There were casualties,” said Lucia, whose arm was entwined with her brother’s. “Most of the newbie vampires didn’t make it. But we did good work tonight.”

Good work. He looked around again, cataloguing each of the bodies. More witches had died in New Orleans. The city was a graveyard for both vampires and witches, their spirits no doubt restless on the Other Side. The back of his neck prickled. Their voices seemed to echo in the church, but there was one voice that was missing.

Elijah frowned. “What happened to Katherine?”


	8. The Doppelgänger

_Dear Diary,_

_I’m writing this so that I have a record. Or the police do, I don’t know. I think Julian is a vampire. I’m taking Louis somewhere safe and then I’m going to call the police._

_Dan, I’m sorry. I love y_

 

**8\. The Doppelgänger**

“Mr Smith?” A knock on the door.

Only one person called him that. “Come in.”

He glanced up as Tamara walked into the study. Elijah was sitting behind a desk, a laptop screen open in front of him. He had tabs open of various news pieces, all results of Tamara’s handiwork.

“Good news.” Tamara beamed. “The launch video has gone viral! Over a million hits already. Everyone’s talking about it. And I got a call just a few minutes ago. They want David to do an interview on the Late Show with David Letterman.”

David with David. The corners of his mouth twitched. David was the only surviving vampire featured in the video. The rest had been staked in the hotel, a fact which Tamara had been only too happy to reveal. Somehow she had gotten several news articles published which called the police attacks “brutal”, “uncalled for” and “state-sanctioned murder, plain and simple”. Meanwhile, the witches’ deaths had gone unreported.

“Impressive work,” said Elijah. “We’ve only just begun, but you haven’t put a foot wrong so far. I’d like to ask your advice.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands together on the desk. “Katherine. We have her in custody. What would you recommend we do with her?”

Tamara’s eyes widened. “Oh. That is a toughie. Well, if you kill her, you run the risk of making her a martyr right when we’re throwing out all these good vibes. You could turn her into a vampire.”

“I’m not sure that would work.”

She frowned, confused. “Um. We could get her to send out a different message. But a pro-vampire Katherine would make it obvious that we’re putting words into her mouth. So I think the best option here is to take Katherine off the radar completely. Take her out of the spotlight. If anyone asks, she went into permanent hiding. Give it a couple of years and no one will be asking.”

“Thank you,” Elijah said softly. “I think it’s time. Could you fetch Elena, please? Tell her to bring Katherine to me.”

Tamara nodded. “Right away.”

*

Elena pulled Katherine in to see him by her hair, fingers twisting to make Katherine grit her teeth in pain. She threw Katherine down on the floor with a smug look. Katherine looked up, breathing hard. She looked dirty, dishevelled. Her hair clung limply to her face.

“Hey, Elijah,” she croaked. “You got me.”

Elijah took a moment to close the lid of his laptop, then his gaze flicked from Katherine to Elena.

“How long has she been incarcerated?”

“Nearly a week,” said Elena. “The vervain has left her system and she doesn’t have any on her. I checked.”

“You mean you groped me,” Katherine retorted. “If I had known you were this touchy-feely, Elena, I would’ve–”

Elena aimed a kick at her back, and Katherine cried out, losing the thread of her words. She turned back to shoot a hateful look at her doppelgänger. 

“Why don’t you just kill me?”

Elena’s mouth curled. “Oh, that would be too easy. You’re going to suffer way more than that.”

*

They lay entwined together, her hair tickling his chin, his arm curled around her waist. The sun had not yet risen but dawn was approaching, suffusing the room with an eerie half-light.

Elena looked up at him. “Is it possible for a vampire with no humanity to fall in love?”

He glanced down, meeting her eyes. “That would be a sign of getting their humanity back.”

“But I don’t want it back.” She sighed, snuffling into his chest. “Can’t I pick and choose?”

“Emotions can’t be chosen. That’s the nature of love. It comes unasked for, whether you want it or not.”

She smiled, leaning in to catch him with a soft, open-mouthed kiss. The sheets slipped down her back. They had made up for their interrupted night at the hotel several times over.

“I want you,” she said. “That’s a choice, isn’t it?”

Elijah smiled back. “An excellent one.”

“It’s good to see you like this,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Happy.”

He brushed away a strand of her hair, and gently tugged at her earlobe with thumb and forefinger. “Well, you make me happy.”

“Can I ask you a favour?”

There was a slightly mischievous glint in her eyes. She slanted her head to one side, arms crossed over his chest, looking impossibly cute.

“Of course.”

He would have granted her anything.

*

They had intercepted Katherine on the way to New Orleans, following the tracking device that Elena had planted on Elijah. Katherine was captured and her guards killed. After that, it was a simple matter of Elena impersonating her human counterpart. She had convinced the witches to move location, to the church in New Orleans that wasn’t protected by the anti-vampire barrier. The other vampires had followed at a distance, ready to move in.

Since then, Julian had taken responsibility for the girl who had made him into a vampire, imprisoning Katherine in their hideout. Elijah had not seen her. Until today.

“Elena has requested my permission to devise a suitable punishment,” Elijah told her, not moving from his seat. “I’ve agreed that she may do so.”

Katherine stared. “Why? Because I killed your siblings? I’m just finishing what Elena started.”

Elena was still standing behind Katherine. She stalked around to face her doppelgänger, her expression one of disgust. “Look around you. You lost, Katherine. You won’t get to finish anything.”

“Maybe not,” said Katherine. “But from where I’m looking, I already won. It doesn’t matter what you do to me. The world will never stop hunting vampires. There’ll be others to fight the good fight.”

“Oh, so suddenly survival isn’t your top priority.”

“Well, that’s the thing about becoming mortal. You’re gonna die anyway, so why not accomplish something before you go?”

Elena shook her head. “And there I thought you wanted a normal life.”

“Sweetie, I think we both know I’m beyond that.”

“You’re psychotic.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

Elena’s mouth tightened. She knelt down and grabbed Katherine by the shoulders, baring her teeth. The veins spread beneath her eyes. Katherine tensed, and Elijah braced a hand against the desk, ready to get up and stop them if necessary, but Elena had a few words to say first.

“Do you think I wanted to be this way?” she asked. “Do you think of all the choices I could have made, I wanted to make this one? I didn’t ask for you to come to Mystic Falls and systematically destroy my life. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

Katherine laughed. “Oh, that’s funny. I could say the exact same thing. Do you think I invited the Originals into my life? And you wonder why I want to destroy them.”

Elijah coughed lightly. “Ladies.”

Elena stood up. “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to compel you and make you forget everything you are. I’m going to make you a doll, a plaything for any vampire. Katherine Pierce will no longer exist. Katerina Petrova will be a dead face no one remembers in a history book no one will read. You’ll be dead, and the rest of your life will be a living hell.”

*

“Elena,” he said. “Please, give us a moment.”

She didn’t look happy about it, but eventually she pursed her lips and departed, closing the door of the study on her way. He listened for her footsteps receding down the hallway, until they faded and he judged that she was too far away to listen in.

Katherine was still huddled on the floor, arms wrapped around her legs. She stared at him balefully.

“So what is this, our last goodbye?”

“Yes,” he said. “I think so.”

“Elijah.” She swallowed. “You can’t let her do this.”

“Don’t worry,” he promised. “You’ll be safe.”

It was rare to see her so fearful, so desperate. But he could hear her heartbeat, and it wasn’t racing. She was calmer than she looked.

Katherine shook her head. “But I won’t be me. I might as well be dead.” She paused. “I thought you loved me.”

“I did love you. But that was a long time ago.”

“You should think before you do this, Elijah,” Katherine said, her voice turning low. “Elena has you eating out of the palm of her hand. But how long do you think she’ll be loyal to you once she finds out that she’s not from your bloodline?”

He stared. “What?”

“Here’s a little secret I learned from the witches,” Katherine said. “When I became human, the line that connected me to Klaus was broken. So my family tree survived even after Klaus’s death.”

It felt like a ball of lead had plunged into the pit of his stomach. She was lying. She had to be. He got up, moving around the desk to crouch in front of Katherine, and compelled her.

“Is this true?”

Her face was expressionless. “Every word.”

“Does Elena know? Did you tell her?”

“I haven’t told her anything,” Katherine replied, perfectly calm. He frowned, and she blinked, smiling. “But she will find out, sooner or later. And when she does, she will kill you. She is a Petrova. We were made to destroy you. And the biggest joke of all is: you won’t see it coming.”

Elijah’s jaw trembled. “She loves me.”

Katherine laughed. “She doesn’t even have her humanity on!”

Somewhere inside him, something snapped. His hand shot out, choking Katherine as he pulled her up by the throat. He gripped her with his mind too, focusing all of his considerable power.

“ _Silence_.”

She sank down when he let her go, clutching her neck, but she didn’t make a sound.  

“Stay where you are,” he ordered, and left the study, his hurried footsteps absorbed by the thick carpet. He looked up and down. Their new hideout was a country manor, a much larger and older building than either his last residence or Elena and Caroline’s apartment. It was big enough to occupy all the surviving vampires in their group. “Elena?” He raised his voice. “Elena.”

He counted the seconds. One. Two. Three–

There she was. She zipped around the corner, then approached him at normal pace. His stomach dropped.

“Are you done?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Elijah. He glanced back over at the study. “I think we’re done.”

*

They gathered in the entrance hall. Suitcases piled up by the door, while bags were strewn haphazardly across the floor. Lucia was packing blood bags into a cold box. He watched Caroline drag a pink suitcase down the stairs and wheel it over to stand by the others.

“Burn your photographs,” Elijah told her. “You must make a new life now.”

She started. “How do you know about those?”

“Oh, come on,” said Elena beside him. “I knew. You didn’t think that I couldn’t hear you crying over them, did you?”

For a moment, Caroline looked stricken. Her lip trembled.

“Your loyalty is to me,” said Elijah, “and to your bloodline. All of you.” He looked around, raising his voice. “Kneel.”

In the cold light of day, he could see them, all of the vampires responding to his command. One by one, they obeyed. Those who had survived. Three of his guards, Lorenzo, Jacob, and Cerise. They would be rewarded for their loyalty. Lucia, ever graceful, who gave him a small smile as she knelt. Caroline, who in a second had returned to being perfectly impassive. Elena, who looked up at him with a gaze so loving and proud, he could have scooped her up and kissed her right there.

Only Julian hesitated, frowning. Julian, who had been the de facto leader of the vampires for several months, and would now be his second-in-command.

Elijah gave him a pointed look.

“Elijah,” said Julian. “I’ve served you. I swore an oath–”

“Then kneel.”

Julian swallowed. Then he dropped to his knees. “Always and forever.”

The vampires spoke as one. “Always and forever.”

Elena rose first. Moving towards him, she took his hand, reaching out with her other hand to grasp Caroline’s. As the vampires stood up, they each joined hands, forming a circle. Elena was at his right shoulder. On his left, completing the circle, was Julian.

Elijah looked at each one of them in turn. His inner circle. His bloodline. His family.

He nodded. “We start anew.”

*

Waves lapped against the beach. She could hear the surf as if she were directly beneath a waterfall, the water crashing over her head.

Megan stumbled back, catching her hip against the kitchen counter. She stuffed her hands in her ears.

“I can’t hear – I – everything’s so loud.” She looked up. “My baby. My baby’s crying.”

Panic overwhelmed her. He was upstairs, safe in his cot – but not safe, not safe, there was a vampire in her house, he couldn’t be safe–

_Her father impaled upon a sword, her mother’s corpse laid out on the bed and her sister besides; blood pooled around their bodies and her baby gone–_

She started forward and Julian caught her. “There now,” he said. “I don’t care about your boy. You’re much more interesting.”

She swallowed, gritting her teeth. “What’s happening to me?”

“I think you know.”

“I need a doctor.” Why were the lights so bright? Why was her head ringing? Why did she feel like an entire section of her skull was trying to drum its way back into her head? “My teeth hurt, my head hurts, I–”

The sound of an engine added to the cacophony inside her head. A car was pulling up the driveway.

Julian glanced at his watch. “Right on time. Honey, I’m home.”

“He can’t see me like this.” She clawed at her face, tears spilling from her eyes. “He can’t see me like this, Julian – _you did this to me_.”

The door opened. She felt like she was drowning. _Running, running, always running, running from_ him _– from vampire eyes and wolf claws–_

She had to bolt. They would be caught any second, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Then Julian disappeared – no sound, no warning, no anything – she simply looked away and when she looked back again he’d gone. The heavy footsteps of her husband greeted her, the grating sound of the car keys jangling as he tossed them on the counter.

“Car needs fixing again. I knew they’d done something wrong, that’s two hundred bucks down the drain and I almost hit a pedestrian at the–” He stopped. “Megan? Is something wrong?”

She was breathing hard, hands braced against the counter. Upstairs, Louis was still crying. “I think I’ve done something bad, Dan.”

“What?”

Then Julian appeared and sank his fangs into Dan’s neck and she screamed. Blood. There was so much blood, how could there be so much blood everywhere… Julian was holding Dan, carrying him towards her like an offering, a meal. His _face_ , his eyes, his mouth dripping blood – and that open wound on Dan’s neck…

She swallowed. This feeling, this _hunger_ – she’d felt it before.

She knew what to do.

“Sorry, Dan.”

She lunged forward, sinking her puny human teeth into Dan’s throat and the blood filled her mouth – bitter, metallic at first, but then she gulped and her fangs lengthened, and the blood turned sweet. She drank and drank and when she had drained him dry, she let his corpse fall down on the kitchen floor.

And then she stood still, memories hitting her like waves.

Julian smiled. “Hello, Katherine.”


End file.
